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Arnold

BENE DJCT ARNO L D

The Proud Warrior

CHARLES COLEMAN SELLERS

“For war, so exciting, he took such delight in,

He did not care whom he fought, so he was fighting.”

— Barham: The Black Mousquetaire

MINTON, BALCH & COMPANY
NEW YORK 1930

♦ CsOfVRiGHrT ;i93o;SY ;

XXL ARLES -COLEMAN: SgJ&ffcS

Printed m the United States of America by

J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK

MY MOTHER
AND

MY SISTER

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. CAPTAIN CROSKIE APOLOGIZES 3

II. THE FIRE-EATER 7

III. TICONDEROGA 25

IV. THE DARK EAGLE DESCENDS ON CANADA ... 46

V. THE STORMING OF QUEBEC 68

VI. EXODUS 84

VII. THE BATTLE OF VALCOUR IOJ

VIII. THE FIRE-EATER WOOS A LADY AND WINS A BATTLE 132

IX. THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA I5I

X. GENERAL ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS . . . . 1 85

XI. THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 21 9

XII. THE PROUD WARRIOR 249

BIBLIOGRAPHY 2$ I

INDEX 297

ILLUSTRATIONS

Benedict Arnold Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

Margaret and Edward Shippen Arnold, 1784 44

The Royal Savage , First Flagship of the First Fleet . . .114

A British Brigadier 212

Leaving the Vulture 238

“Conscious of the rectitude of my Intentions” 250

BENEDICT ARNOLD

CHAPTER I

CAPTAIN CROSKIE APOLOGIZES

It was merely convenience, no doubt, which decreed to the gentle-
men of a more fastidious age that the early hours of the mor ning
should be the time when they must meet for the shedding of one
another’s blood in the maintenance of that uncertain bundle of
emotions which they called their honor. And yet in the time one
can find a poetic appropriateness to the settlement of these inconse-
quential affairs of life and death. For to each contestant is brought
the dawn of something new: a proud vindication, the indecisive
disgrace of defeat, death, perhaps,— Fate, the whimsical arranger
of these encounters, only knew. Great men, men whose sense of
responsibility outweighed the niceties of the code, rarely trusted
themselves to the whimsical arranger, and thus the world at large,
interested, horrified, admiring, saw after all but one new day of
many to come, and each petty, flaring broil passed in its brilliance
and took its meager place in history.

History has taken no notice whatever of a hostile meeting on a
tropic shore, when two sea captains of the old West India trade
fought upon a point of honor. But the tradition which has come
down to us in the family of the victor may be relied on to give a
creditable account of a not improbable affair. It occurred in the day
when England was vying with her American colonies for this
southern commerce, and Captain Croskie, it seems, was one of
those rough, determined, impatient British mariners who had
given so much to the greatness of their empire, while Captain
Benedict Arnold without doubt belonged to those plaguey, law-

4 BENEDICT ARNOLD

defying Yankee skippers, who were doing so much to tear it
asunder.

It was on the Bay of Honduras, as the story is told, on a radiant
tropic evening, the ships swaying gently at their moorings on the
infinite blue of the sea, beyond them the dark shore, behind which
the sun had vanished in its sudden glory, and through their spars
and over the water, the fireflies rivaling the brightness of the stars.
But the gentlemen of this age, and least of all, Benedict Arnold,
were not greatly moved by these, as they sometimes referred to
them, grander prospects of nature. Arnold, as the story is told, was
in his cabin, preparing for the final homeward departure of his
ship. He was sitting at a table, perhaps, this short, heavily muscular
man with the bronzed, commanding countenance, a lantern from
the ceiling dimly lighting the room, a pronged brass candlestick on
the table throwing a red gleam into decanter and glass, shedding
its yellow light over the litter of papers before him: letters from his-
agents and the masters of his other vessels, accounts of purchases
and sales, a tangled record of human desires, of fish and horses,
cotton and rum and ginger, mahogany and logwood and Braziletto
wood of Honduras. And then, as the Captain is well settled to his
work, comes the opening of the cabin door and the presentation of
a note from Captain Croskie, inviting his fellow adventurer on
board to a social evening with a company of gentlemen. The note
is hastily read and laid aside. The sailor retires, and Arnold, whose
energetic soul ever subordinated pleasure to business, works on
under the yellow gleam, quill scratching fiercely under the strong
hand, to the faint creakings of his ship and a murmur of voices
from the deck.

Morning comes, and Arnold, having breakfasted, tied his queue
and adjusted his attire, enters a boat and is rowed to the side of the
British merchantman, the tarry pigtails of his white-clad, bristle-
faced sailors thumping their backs with every rhythmic pull on
the oars. He boards her and inquires for the captain, to whom it
is his intention to express an apology for his failure to answer the

CAPTAIN CROSKIE APOLOGIZES

invitation of the night before. After a delay of some minutes,
Croskie emerges from some dark recess, florid, and in none too
good a humor after the jollities of the evening. Captain Arnold
presents his excuses. Captain Croskie replies by swearing roundly
that his visitor is, among other things which have not come down
to us, “a damned Yankee, destitute of good manners or those of a
gentleman.” Blunderingly, Captain Croskie has thrust his great fist
into the tenderest part of a sensitive and defiant soul, Benedict
Arnold’s pride in his honor. Benedict Arnold is a man of honor.
He is a man of standing and education, a man who has traveled
and read and made a place for himself in the world. Without a
word, without a change in the suddenly hardened face, he draws
off a glove, hands it with a slight bow to the somewhat astonished
Englishman, and descends to his boat.

In due course the representatives of the principals confer, and
the meeting is arranged, for the following morning, at dawn. The
place is to be a small island in the bay. Each is to be accompanied
only by his second and a surgeon. Through the day, pistols are
oiled and tested, as two brave men prepare for battle. Captain
Croskie suspects his damned Yankee of plotting foul play, and
Captain Arnold is none too trustful of his opponent’s sense of
honor. The night passes, and the swinging bats and the fireflies
vanish again before the sudden splendor of the dawn. A jolly-boat
is launched with a splash and slides over the gilded water.

Arnold is the first upon the field of honor. In a small boat,
with his second and a surgeon, he passes across to the litde island,
green and golden in the brilliant morning sun, and awaits his
adversary in the cool shadow of the palms. There are the click
and splash of oars at last, and the Englishman swings into view,
seated, with his two aides, in the stern of a large boat manned by
half a dozen swarthy natives of the shore. Refusing to allow his
enemy the benefit of any possible doubts, Arnold walks down
upon the sand and demands why the natives have been brought.
Captain Croskie has some surly excuse, but the three men land at

BENEDICT ARNOLD

the pistoFs point, and the dusky crew of the boat are commanded
to retire on pain of death.

The ground is chosen and measured, and the principals take
their places, the defiant Englishman glaring into the frowning
face before him. It has been decided that he, as the recipient of
Captain Arnold’s challenge, shall fire the first shot. The word is
given, he aims, and fires. The thick-set body of the American
is uninjured and unmoved. The dark face shows no emotion of
triumph or relief. Another shot breaks the silence, and the English-
man stumbles back, cursing, slightly wounded, into the arms of his
surgeon. The sharp, strong chin of Arnold falls a trifle, his lips
parted in fierce satisfaction at the sight. There is a hawklike
mercilessness in his sun-browned face, the black hair, the bright
eyes, the aquiline nose, the set white teeth.

He calls upon Captain Croskie, whose wound has been dressed,
to resume his place and make ready to fire again. “I give you
warning,” the proud, contemptuous voice concludes, “if you miss
this time, I shall kill you.” Captain Croskie steps forward and
utters his apology.

In such wise was the honor of the American preserved, that its
glitter might catch the wonder and scorn of America and England
in later years. This brief flash of battle, seen so vaguely through the
mist of time, strikes a keynote for the wild career that followed.
Here was an adventurer and, like all adventurers, a man of destiny:
a cruel, malevolent destiny that urged him, impetuously hopeful,
toward great things, and always snatched them from him when
he came too near. Fate, it seemed, was already busy with this
grotesque game of hers, when pistols cracked and blood flowed
for the honor of Benedict Arnold, on that sparkling little island
in the Bay of Honduras, at dawn.

CHAPTER n

THE FIRE-EATER
1. The Merchant Patriot.

“Cruelty and godliness,” the Rev. Dr. Peters tells us in that little
gem of splenetic lore, his General History of Connecticut, “were
perhaps never so well reconciled by any people as by those of
Newhaven, who are alike renounded for both.” One must make
allowance for the Reverend Doctor’s vindictive bad temper, but the
generalization was nevertheless based upon experience. It was a
crude and fervent civilization that ruled colonial New England,
blatant, progressive and boisterous, a solemnly, belligerently pious
civilization, nourished by a conflict of more than a hundred years
with the rocky soil, the wilderness and the sea. Samuel Peters,
minister of God’s will in the ritual of the established Church of
England, found himself at odds with the spirit of the people, and
was made to suffer for their displeasure. And New Haven, with
her shaded streets, her timber houses, white or red or weathered
gray with age. New Haven, with her college and her rigorous
little intelligentsia, her wharves and warehouses and merchant ad-
venturers, New Haven, of all the youthful. God-fearing Connecti-
cut towns, offered to him the most acrid reconciliation of cruelty
and godliness.

At New Haven, sallow divines, stern and strong of visage,
thundered unchallenged in the meeting houses, and stem, strong-
visaged mefr, spyglass to eye, looked out across the harbor from
the captains’ walks. Common folk worked and gossiped and
prayed, and accepted those opinions that were taught to them by
the lords spiritual and temporal. Ghosts walked in the old houses,

BENEDICT ARNOLD

and on foggy nights the ship which the city had sent to Crom-
well's navy came back into the harbor, steered by a tall man with
a long sword.

Time brought its changes to the colonies, to the seacoast settle-
ments a broader trade and a broader outlook. There grew upon
them a sense of power and importance, a sense of nationality. The
end of the French wars in 1763 brought the commercial restrictions
of an effort to centralize the empire, and restrictions, ignored and
resisted over a period of years, brought talk of national rights
and honor. To that determined self-confidence which Dr. Peters
classified as cruelty and godliness, there was added the flavoring
of a sense of honor. And before the conquests of the French and
Indian War had yet been ratified on paper, there came to New
Haven a short, dark, strong young man, whose soul was the
embodiment of a proud and aggressive honor.

The young man came well recommended and well supported.
For he had served an apprenticeship with Drs. Daniel and Joshua
Lathrop, apothecaries, graduates of Yale, in his native town of
Norwich, northeastward by the upper Thames. These gendemen
aided in the establishment of their protege at New Haven. Above
his door a sign glistened with new varnish and creaked in the
wind.

“B. ARNOLD, Druggist,

Bookseller, &c. 5 from London.

Sibi totiqucT

The motto, “For himself and for all,” was characteristic of this
young gendeman, who loved to lend weight to serious assertions
by quoting odd shreds of the classics. New Haven suited his
temperament better than Norwich, hidden among hills. He turned
to the sea and learned the mariner’s science. “Dr. Arnold” was
not a tide that appealed to him, for it tasted of respected limitations
and the middle class. He visited London and the ports of trade.
And the shop, which, after the manner of drug stores, carried

THE FIRE-EATER

a varied stock, including all the latest books from West and Lyttel-
ton on the Resurrection and the Bible in Hebrew to Tom Jones
and the popular plays and novels, fell into the background in his
career. He ceased to import merely for the shop. He became “Cap-
tain Arnold,” master mariner and merchant of the city. Men saw
a stocky, muscular form, and a bold, proud face, roughened and
tanned by stormy weather and the tropic sun. Energetic, but reck-
lessly overconfident of the future, at times he suffered ill fortune,
to the disadvantage of his credit, for he was not a man who would
pay to the limit when funds were low. He acquired ships and
warehouses and a fine white mansion on Water street, where a tall
and graceful lady with yellow hair, his sister, poured tea for the bet-
ter people of the town. He was listened to with as grave an interest
where the old traders talked of business risks and gains over their
Grenada or Antigua, as he was heartily welcome in the gayest
social circle, where Grenada and Antigua and good rum punch
flowed also, and where the dark little man became an inspiration
to the gods of merriment and revealed his speculative impulse in
the fashionable vice of venturing into extraordinary wagers with
whoever could match his reckless trust in Dame Fortune.

He was dealing in liquors and foods with foreign parts. He
sailed to Canada and established business connections, shipping
the sleek northern horses to the West India islands, and returning
with lumber and molasses and other goods. These activities were
of importance to history because they brought this impetuous young
gentleman into personal conflict with the new imperial policies.
History records the first open encounter in the melancholy case of
Peter Boole.

This incautious person, Peter Boole, able seaman, crowned his
iniquities with the sin of giving information to the King’s agents
concerning his captain’s business in contrabands. Arnold, before
he and his friends ran the wretch out of town, tied him up and gave
him such a lashing as he might never expect to receive again,
painting the stripes with a knotty right arm that was probably well

BENEDICT ARNOLD

practiced in the art. Yet receive it again he did when he dared
return to town. The man had persisted, and in the end had been
awarded a small sum in damages for his sufferings, while the town
meeting favored his cause with an expression of horror and alarm.
Smuggling, however, touched the heart of so many an honest
trader, that Arnold did not hesitate to appeal to the great court
of public opinion.

“Mr. Printer, Sir: — As I was a party concerned in whipping the Informer,
the other day,” he announced, modestiy enough, in the Connecticut Gazette,
“and unluckily out of town when the Court sat, and finding the affair much
misrepresented to my disadvantage and many animadversions thereon, espe-
cially in one of your last by a very fair, candid gentleman indeed, as he pre-
tends; after he had insinuated all that malice could do, adds, that he will say
nothing to prejudice the minds of the people. — He is clearly seen through the
Grass, but the weather is too cold for him to bite. — To satisfy the public, and
in justice to myself and those concerned, I beg you’d insert in your next the
following detail of the affair.

“The Informer having been a voyage with me, in which he was used
with the greatest humanity, on our return was paid his wages to his full
satisfaction; and informed me of his intention to leave the town that day,
wished me well, and departed the town as I imagined. — But he two days
after endeavored to make information to a Custom House Officer; but it
being holy time was desired to call on Monday, early on which day I heard
of his intention, and gave him a little chastisement; on which he left the
town; and on Wednesday returned to Mr. Beechen’s, where I saw the
fellow, who agreed to and signed the following acknowledgement and Oath.

u % Peter Boole, not having the fear of God before my Eyes, but being
instigated by the Devil, did on the 24th instant, make information or en-
deavor to do the same, to one of the Custom House Officers for the port of
New Haven, against Benedict Arnold, for importing contraband goods, do
hereby acknowledge I justly deserve a halter for my malicious and cruel
intentions.

“ ‘I do now solemnly swear I will never hereafter make information,
directly or indirectly, or cause the same to be done, against any person or per-
sons whatever, for importing contraband or any other goods into this Colony
or any part of America; and that I will immediately leave New Haven and
never enter the same again. So help me God.

“New Haven, 29th January 1766/

THE FIRE-EATER

“This was done precisely at 7 o'clock, on which I engaged not to inform
the sailors of his being in town, providing he would leave it immediately
according to our agreement. Near four hours after I heard a noise in the
street and a person informed me the sailors were at Mr. Beechen’s. On
enquiry, I found the fellow had not left town. I then made one of the party
and took him to the Whipping Post, where he received near forty lashes with
a small cord, and w r as conducted out of town; since which on his return the
affair was submitted to Colonel David Wooster and Mr. Enos Allen, (Gentle-
men of reputed good judgement and understanding,) who w r ere of opinion
that the fellow was not whipped too much and gave him 50 shillings damages
only.

“Query. — Is it good policy, or would so great a number of people, in any
trading town on the Continent, (New Haven excepted,) vindicate caress
and protect an Informer — a character particularly at this alarming time so
jusdy odious to the Public? Every such influence tends to suppress our trade,
so advantageous to the Colony, and to almost every individual, both here and
in Great Britain, and which is nearly ruined by the late detestable stamp and
other oppressive acts — acts which we have so severely felt and so loudly com-
plained of, and so earnestly remonstrated against that one would imagine
every sensible man would strive to encourage trade and discountenance such
useless, such infamous Informers. I am, Sir, your humble servant.

“Benedict Arnold.”

Some of the merchants disliked the dark young man because
they found him a sharp, hard dealer. John Remson was not the
only one of his fellow traders who felt the fury of the fierce little
mariner’s displeasure. To measure the soul of a man of action, one
must see him in anger, and here Arnold first appears before pos-
terity in the harsh and vivid wrath of one man against another.

With John Remson, merchant of New York, Captain Arnold
had had a business connection of some years’ standing. But in
March of 1768, we find the Captain in a sour temper born of poor
profits and an unpaid debt. “If Mr. Riche,” he informs Mr. Remson,
“thinks there is anything due him on the contract, he is welcome
to seek it in what way he pleases. I think I can convince the whole
world I have been a loser of Fifty per cent on both voyages, as
every Bill was protested, which occationed a loss of Twenty per

BENEDICT ARNOLD

cent added to the Discount the Bills sold at. . . .” This paves the
way for the matter in hand: Mr. Remson is withholding a small
sum. “I cannot say what pleasure it is for you to keep the ballance
due me in your hands, but can assure you it will give me much
pleasure to receive it, as it has been due three years and I want it
very much, which reasons I hope will induce you to pay my or-f
der. . . On the receipt of Mr. Remson’s reply, the storm broke:

“Sir,

“Your very extraordinary letter of the 12th inst. by Capt. Bradley came
to hand, & I assure you it is with the utmost Indifference I observe all the
unjust and False Aspersions your Malice could invent, both with regard to
the Fortune’s cargo and our affidavits, as a consciousness of my uprightness
and Fairness in regard to our concerns will never suffer the opinion of you
or any other Blockhead to give me any uneasiness. . . .” The upbraiding con-
cludes with some brief bad news for Mr. Remson as its finishing stroke.
“Those gendemen who were arbitrators in the Fortune’s cargo were so honest
as to determine you should have nothing if the Bills were not accepted, which
was the case with every one for both cargoes — which I hope will prevent any
more of your Impertinency making the last of

“Yours &c.

“B. Arnold.”

The two incidents of Peter Boole and John Remson reveal much
of the adventurer’s pose in life. In the concern of the informer, he
betrays that insinuating hypocrisy which always characterized his
appeals to the public conscience. He is the earnest patriot, inflicting
“a little chastisement” with “a small cord” for the well being of
colony and continent. Toward John Remson, he is the merchant
of invulnerable rectitude, “conscious,” and this is his favorite and
most characteristic phrase, “of my own uprightness.” In both affairs,
he is the gentleman of a delicate sense of honor, scrupulously,
rigorously hostile to the interference of self-seeking men. In both,
one feels that the pose is both defensive and aggressive, that he
is meeting the possibility of accusation and complaint with accusa-
tion and complaint.

THE FIRE-EATER

Of all these matters, and of numerous others, the gossips of
'I New Haven had a thing or two to say. Hannah Arnold might
vmhat about their great-grandfather, who had been President and
^pGovernor of Rhode Island colony, but it was known that their
father had come to Norwich as a cooper, had turned merchant,
jj^iad failed at last, and died a poor drunkard and a public nuisance.
^Perhaps the quick pride of his son was touched by this disgrace,
as his own sons were to be inflamed by the stain upon their father’s
honor. Not that the son had scruples about high living. He was
apparently a popular pot companion, and in this day but little
of moderation was required in gentlemen’s pot companionship.
He was a man of forceful ambitions, not to be seduced by fruitless
pleasures. In the life of a thinker, the environment of childhood
^ns of the first importance. But to Arnold it could add only the
rf'isense of gentle birth. The Puritan piety of his mother and his
(neighborhood, utterly incompatible with his nature, was far less
-Ja stimulus to action than the ignominy of his father’s being “taken
j up” by the constable for public drunkenness.

\P The gossips, as sympathetic as they are aggressive, loved to
r— dwell upon the sad case of the young man’s mother, so often shamed
’'.by husband and son, and yet so piously watchful over her untam-
gfl jhlp gift of the Almighty, tenderly urging upon him the needs
of his soul. “Pray my dear whatever you neglect dont neglect your
presios soal which once lost can never be regained.” But the child
had grown up as a leader of the wildest boys, a vigorous, careless,
boastful lad, mischievous and a bully, a dark, smiling boy. He
had hunted wildcats and foxes in the woods, he had stolen poultry
and tied tin buckets to the tails of the farmers’ cattle. He had
gained local renown by clinging with hands and feet to the water
i wheel of a mill, lifted high in air and carried down into the rum-
pJbling depths of the race with each ponderous, whining rotation.
_ At fourteen, when interrupted in the business of stealing tar barrels
^ from a shipyard near Norwich, he had stripped off his jacket and
challenged the constable, “a stout and grave man,” to fight. It

BENEDICT ARNOLD

was common talk of how, at fifteen, he had run away to join the
forces mustering for service in the north. Friends had pursued and
restored him to the poor mother, but ere long he vanished anew
with the same purpose. This time he had seen service at Ticon-
deroga, and other of the wilderness fortresses, until, finding even
militia discipline wearisome, he deserted and came home again.
Not long after, the worries and prayers of the mother had been
ended in death, an event which the gossips must needs lay to the
wild pranks of her son.

New Haven had a taste of his wildness whenever his will was
crossed. It was long the talk of the town how Hannah Arnold
had fallen in love with a gallant young Frenchman, an alliance
which her brother, with his usual rigorous assertion and distaste
for the people of that nation, refused to consider. So the lovers
met in secret, until Arnold returned unexpectedly one evening
to find that they were together in his parlor. Procuring his pistols,
with which, by practice and a good eye, he had become so expert
a marksman , he ordered a servant to bang loudly at the door from
wi thin, while he himself waited in the street before the faintly
lighted windows of the parlor. As the irate mariner expected, a
panic seized the young Frenchman when he heard the din at the
door, and he opened and leapt from a window. Arnold’s pistols
rang out in quick succession, but the shadows of the shrubbery
that screened the lower windows of the house and the agility of
the frightened lover spoiled his aim. It was rumored that the moun-
seer met him later at a West Indian port, and that a duel was
fought in which Arnold was again the victor. But however all this
may have been, Hannah never thought of marriage again, nor
ever lost entirely her submissive, admiring affection for her
brother, and he throughout his life treated her with regard and
maintained her in comfort.

Benedict Arnold, fourth of the name, druggist and merchant,
in 1767 married the daughter of the High Sheriff of New Haven
County and continued to prosper. In due course, three sons were

THE FIRE-EATER

born, Benedict and Richard and Henry. Margaret Mansfield Ar-
nold, beautiful and pious and accomplished in the household arts,
became a proud echo of her husband’s commanding ego. The
drug store was abandoned for broader enterprise. And she became
his partner in their international ventures and conflicts with the
crown of Great Britain. There is a letter of 1773, dated at Quebec,
to Margaret, from,

“Dear Peggy, your affectionate & Unhappy

“Bened: Arnold,”

in which he laments, among other nuisances, being informed upon
by a seaman, as he was about to sail for Barbadoes.

“My Dearest Life, you Cannot Imagine how much trouble &
fatigue I have gone thro’ since here, two of my people have In-
formed against me which had nearly cost me my Vessel, so, had
not my friends Interfered which with the addition of Ten or
fifteen pounds to the Villains settled the matter . . .”

But the radicals had now so gained in numbers and warmth of
feeling that a mere flogging or tarring and feathering passed with-
out particular remark. These expositors of commercial freedom,
among whom Benedict Arnold had been a leader from the start,
by dint of strong opinions strongly expressed, were c omin g into
control of a young and optimistic civilization.

II. T he Soldier Adventurer.

With Benedict Arnold, honor was not a character neatly de-
fined or conveniently abstract, as with most of us. It was his peace
of mind, it was his sense of superiority over other men. It was his
instinct to command, and where he felt that it was not respected
he was hostile or aloof. He saw the world in terms of this domineer-
ing self. When he embraced a cause he did so vigorously, whole-
heartedly, with no sense of duty or of submission to a higher self,
higher than his perspnal ambitions. No New England merchant

BENEDICT ARNOLD

resented more strongly than he Great Britain’s efforts to consolidate
and centralize the empire, but he did not think deeply of Parlia-
mentary usurpation of power, and had no positive ideal of govern-
ment: he only talked of them. What mattered was that attempts
to restrict his enterprises were becoming numerous and difficult
to evade. It was a choice between foreign oppression and honor,
the honor of America.

From St. George’s Key in West Indian waters, in the summer
of 1770, he wrote to a friend in New Haven — “was very much
shocked the other Day, on hearing the accounts of the Cruel,
Wanton & In h u man Murders committed in Boston by the Sol-
diers.” It is a passing outburst at the end of a long statement of
business affairs, but in it one glimpses the wilful, swiftly emotional
soul, aroused by the hope of action. “Good God, are the Americans
all asleep & tamely giving up their glorious liberties, or, are they
all turned Philosophers that they don’t take immediate vengeance
on such miscreants; I am afraid of the latter and that we shall all
see ourselves as poor and as much oppressed as ever heathen
Philosopher was ”

It is, of course, scarcely an unusual failing for mankind to act
on personal motives and to assign to principles and ideals an ex-
planatory function. Benedict Arnold was not alone in making his
livelihood the basis of action and argument. His was the Age of
Reason, and, as the observant Franklin pointed out, there is a
convenience in being “a reasonable creature, since it enables one
to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”
Arnold was conspicuous not only in the furious resentment which
any attempt at restriction always aroused in him, but in that his
unquiet, self-engrossed nature sought more than redress as the war
loomed. Rebellion from England would bring that state of up-
heaval and political uncertainty which has always attracted the
military adventurer. Hawkins and Drake sought it across the sea;
it made the poor Baron von Neuhoff King of Corsica, and Napoleon
Bonaparte Emperor of France. And to the American armies came

THE FIRE-EATER

soldier adventurers from farm and harbor and all the courts of
Europe, sententiously patterning their behavior on that of the pa-
triots whose fears and ideals underlay the resistance.

Of these was Benedict Arnold. An arbitrary self-interest was the
basis of their careers; courage, and the restless demand for action
and power, led them on. To their personal outlook, they combined
a soldierly lack of principle. The professional soldier has a free
idea of morals: he takes what he wants and allows an end to justify
a means. Often their measure of success or failure seemed guided
by a consistent destiny, partly from their own readiness to personify
Fate, to whom they trusted themselves so often, and partly because
with them so much depended on their individual powers and limi-
tations that their careers were apt to follow a course in proportion
to their greatness.

Arnold was a shrewd and practical man. His ambition never
soared beyond the range of possibility, although it led him against
tremendous odds. Not given to profound thinking for contempla-
tion’s sake, he had nevertheless a quick mind, vigorous and com-
prehensive in its judgments. His decisions on the battlefield, con-
sidering his complete lack of any military instruction, show the
qualities of sure, swift action in the face of danger. Through the
hard campaigns in which he won his fame he showed the high
qualities of leadership. By his heroism he inspired heroism in his
men: he could set them a dashing example of bravery and chivalry
and self-sacrifice. And yet his life was a succession of failures,
partly from circumstance, largely from his own littleness.

His most costly weakness lay in his social relationships. He
could inspire men by a gallant example, but he possessed small
personal magnetism, and, with a soldierly directness, scorned to be
tactful. He had few close friends. There was a self-assertive finality
in his manner which irritated many, and gave to men impressions
that he was pompous, suspicious or hostile. He was, indeed, proud,
quick to suspect, and a violent hater. In this antagonistic character,
he failed to build up the friendships which would have advanced

18 BENEDICT ARNOLD

him in honors as he won glory in the war. His life was a long
series of profitless personal enmities. His pride had little of vanity
in it, and nothing of the swashbuckler. It appeared in his desire
to play a leading role. It has been suggested that so sensitive a
regard as his for his rights and his character as a gentleman must
have covered some sense of inferiority. But Arnold had a healthy
knowledge of his powers: it was his confidence in them that under-
lay his demand for leadership and his hostility, to those who- might
oppose. His nature demanded action, a violent, definite settlement
of any doubt. Knowing the futility of arguing a point of honor, he
was always eager to fight. He was quick to sense the disfavor of
others and always met it with a contemptuous wrath.

His few friends were bound to him by the sense of his leader-
ship, by admiration and good fellowship, if not by affection. They
were always welcome at his house and his purse was always open
to them were they in need. But the bond of friendship was easily
broken if it impeded him. None of life’s pleasures, indeed, from
the social glass or the admiring female to the worship of the Al-
mighty ever hindered his advance. There were men who were
proud to know him, and men who feared, and women who adored .
him, this discriminating gentleman, this weatherbeaten mariner and
merchant: a fierce, impetuous hater and fighter, haughtily assertive,
but heavy or awkward in the gentler things. War was in the air, and
Benedict Arnold took the “glorious liberties” of America for his
charge and made here freedom his aim in life.

III. The Governor’s Guards .

Feeling ran high in the seacoast towns in ’seventy-four, and
Tories were still powerful and plentiful enough to be the cause of
a great deal of bustle and excitement. As the Rev. Dr. Samuel
Peters viewed the situation, there were in New Haven two mobs:
the mob of Colonel Wooster and, the mob of Captain Arnold. As
Arnold represented the soldiers of fortune, so David Wooster,

THE FIRE-EATER

shortly to receive a general’s commission, stood for the more solid
element in the cause of American freedom, the patriots who took
arms against their king from sober conviction and a sense of out-
rage to their country. Each, perhaps, did have a following of his
own in the town, for Wooster was a temperate citizen who had
never trusted the firebrand. He was a man past sixty in ’seventy-
four, a graduate of Yale who had married the President’s daughter,
a veteran of the French and Indian War who had served as an
officer of the British regular army. He had founded the first Ma-
sonic lodge in Connecticut, and had settled down at last as a
merchant of New Haven.

Arnold was also a Mason, a merchant, a patriot and a gentle-
man. But his leadership was based upon a more popular appeal.
He had not outgrown the reckless daring of his boyhood. When
he w r as once loading a cargo of cattle, an ox broke away and stam-
peded through the wharfside crowd. Arnold cut loose a horse,
swung on its back in furious pursuit, clapped his fingers into the
beast’s nostrils and held it thus until his men came up. Such deeds
won greater distinction in this day than a more sophisticated era
would accord them, and many a revolutionary officer’s career was
founded upon such prowess. Israel Putnam, who made up in energy
and rough good humor what he lacked in generalship, was famous
throughout the colonies for his exploit with the she-bear that stole
away a pig from his pigpen. “Old Put” leapt from his bed and
rushed out into the night, without lantern and armed only with
a short club, and thus he followed the squealing of the pig to a
cave in the hillside. He entered the cave and killed the bear and
her two cubs with his stick. People came from many miles to view
the place, and with a pious satisfaction declared that the deed ex-
ceeded those of Samson and David.

The Rev. Samuel Peters, however, could see no similarity be-
tween the defenders of Israel and the rebel subjects of the King.
In the aut umn of 1774, this outspoken worthy found himself
harried from town to town by the vehement displeasure of the

BENEDICT ARNOLD

patriot party, and came, at last, in his carriage, with his servants,
to New Haven. Here he consulted with Dr. James Hillhouse on the
perils of the situation.

“My house is your protection,” that gentleman replied, accord-
ing to the pleasantly tinted account which Dr. Peters subsequently
offered to the world, “yet I want protection myself against the
mobs of Colonel Wooster and Dr. Benedict Arnold, who are mob-
bing the Sandemanians for having spoken against the outrageous
conduct of the destroyers of the teas in Boston harbour. But as you
decline my offer, I advise you to put up at the house of the Rev.
Dr. Hubbard, and, if any disturb you, warn them to keep out of
the house and yard upon pain of death; and if they break the gate,
shoot them and kill as many as enter the yard. I will raise men
and come to your assistance.”

The Rev. Dr. Hubbard welcomed the visitor into his house,
at the same time removing his wife and children to a neighbor’s,
in the confident expectation of trouble. Peters generously agreed
to shoulder the cost of whatever damage might be done, and the
two secured the gate to the yard, fastened the shutters and made
ready for use about twenty muskets borrowed for the occasion.
Thus prepared, the two divines, with their servants behind them,
awaited grimly the coming of Col. Wooster and Dr. Benedict
Arnold.

At about ten in the evening, Arnold and his mob arrive before
the gate. Arnold tries the gate, and calls upon them to open it.
To this the black-robed Peters, firelock in hand, a furious little
figure in the dark doorway, replies dramatically,

“The gate shall be opened this night but on pain of death!”

Whereat the mob calls out, “Dr. Arnold, break down the gate,
and we will follow you and punish that Tory Peters!”

Arnold calls for an ax with which to force an entrance, and
this move is met with a yet sterner warning:

“Arnold, so sure as you split the gate, I will blow your brains
out, and all that enter this yard tonight.” Dr. Arnold steps back

THE FIRE-EATER

and orders one of his followers to split the gate, and the mob
shouts, “Dr. Arnold is a coward!”

“I am no coward,” replies Arnold, “but I know Dr. Peters’ dis-
position and temper, and he will fulfill every promise he makes;
and I have no wish for death at present.” So the mob cries, “Let
us depart from this Tory house!” and exeunt omnes.

Half an hour later, Col. Wooster and his mob challenge the
gate, and again Peters appears with the same threatening front,
and again the enemy retire. On the next day, the hero of the night
made his escape in disguise, to continue his harassed peregrina-
tions, leading him at last to security in England, whence he gave
vent to his emotions and opinions undisturbed.

Late in December, the mob of Dr. Arnold took a more orderly
form. By petition to the Assembly, a new militia corps was organ-
ized, The Second Company of Governor’s Foot Guards. Its mem-
bers were the younger, more ardent patriots of the town. They
elected Benedict Arnold their Captain. In the independent spirit
of the colonial citizen, they all signed a “mutual covenant,” agree-
ing to preserve order and obey their officers under penalty only of
expulsion from the company, “as totally unworthy of serving in so
great and glorious a cause.”

Captain Arnold no doubt devoted much of his time to a study
of the standard mili tary texts, the commentaries on the Gallic War,
Marshal Saxe’s campaigns, Fontinus on strategy, the lives of Alex-
ander, Hannibal and Csesar, of Spinoza, Turenne and Conde. The
company met with regularity to drill in the exercise of arms.

“Cock — firelock!”

“Poise — firelock!”

“Take aim!”

‘Tire!”

There is a r umblin g roar, and smoke for a few moments hides
the files from the spectators standing in the trampled snow around
the common.

“Half-cock — firelock !”

BENEDICT ARNOLD

“Handle — cartridge !”

“Prime!”

“Shut— pan!”

“Charge with cartridge!”

“Draw— rammer!”

“Ram — cartridge!”

“Return— rammer !”

“Shoulder— firelock !”

“To the right— face!”

“March!”

Powder is too dear to be wasted in salutes, but the company
continues to practice the intricate motions, varying them with
marching, wheeling and the exercises of the bayonet. At last they
swing out into the streets, marching down to the Captain’s house
for a few warming rounds of grog to end the day. The drummer
boy is beating them in rhythm, and shrilly, pertly, into the crisp
winter air, the fifer plays an old, familiar tune, an impudent, light-
hearted tune, to which a long, hard war was to be fought and an
empire cracked asunder.

‘Yankee doodle diddle doo,

Yankee doodle doo, sir.

The sober lads on Training Day,

Oh, they are precious few, sir"

Rebellion loomed through a holiday spirit of resentment. Those
who had led the movement in its infancy were beginning to ponder
more seriously, according to their various outlooks and disposi-
tions, on the future. The patriots in general were thrilling to their
sense of trampled nationality, of national rights and honor. April
came, and in Boston General Thomas Gage, outnumbered almost
four to one by the rebel minute men, ordered out his soldiers to
raid the stores at Concord. Trusting to speed and secrecy for success,
they found the country aroused to greet them, and the war began.
It was a small affair, but the first blood had been shed, the match

THE FIRE-EATER

had been put to the touchhole, and the explosion followed in swift
course. The men who had harried the redcoats back to town settled
down before it, and the organization of an army was begun.

“The first opposition would be irregular, impetuous and inces-
sant,” Gage’s intelligence sendee had informed him, “from numer-
ous bodies that would swarm to the place of action, and all actu-
ated by an enthusiasm wild and ungovernable.” He now found the
information correct. The Massachusetts leaders took pains to per-
suade the more placid sister colonies that the regulars had been the
aggressors in the skirmishing. From far and near, armed companies
of patriots set forth to join the besieging forces.

The news of Lexington reached New Haven on midday of the
twentieth of April, the day after the fight. Benedict Arnold in-
stantly summoned his company to the public square, declared in
the hot, strong language that best served his emotions that he was
ready to lead them to Boston, and called for volunteers. The greater
part, in the martial spirit of the hour, agreed to follow him, and
these, joined by a few youths from the spectators, n umb ered a
force of about sixty.

On the next morning, with the company ready to start. Captain
Arnold called upon the selectmen of the town for ammunition. The
selectmen demurred and refused. Colonel Wooster, in the deliberate
calm of experience and years, advised the impetuous firebrand to
wait for regular orders. Arnold at once rejoined his company and
paraded it before the building in which the selectmen sat, a trim
double line in scarlet coats faced with buff on cuff and collar and
glittering with silver buttons, small shirt ruffles protruding from the
white vests, white breeches and stockings and black half leggins
above their shoes, cartridge boxes belted smartly at their hips, and
cockaded hats shading their alert, proud eyes. He sent in a notice
that unless the keys to the arsenal were delivered within five min-
utes he would break down the doors. Wooster expostulated and
begged him to wait for orders.

“None but the almighty God,” said Arnold, “shall prevent my

24 BENEDICT ARNOLD

marching.” No objection descending from on high, the keys were
delivered, the armament completed, and, with sermon of farewell,
with a babble of voices bidding “God speed ye,” and to whip the
regulars, the company was out upon the Post Road, marching
north.

Their flags bore, on a yellow field, the three grapevines, em-
blem of the state, and on banner and drum, the motto, “Qui trans-
tulit sustinet” (He who transplanted will sustain). And thus the
Governor’s Guards, the pride of New Haven, brought a dash of
color and a martial roll of drums to the villages along the way, and
the people responded with warm welcome to their coming and a
cheery farewell as they passed on. And thus they swept gaily into
Cambridge, the best drilled and the only perfectly uniformed and
equipped company in the camp. Arnold took up his quarters at
the splendid mansion of Lieutenant-Governor Oliver, who had fled
to the British, and his spruce little band of rebels became a boast and
inspiration to the citizen soldiery, and was selected as the sample
of American military prowess when a guard of honor was needed
to deliver to General Gage the body of an English officer who had
died a prisoner. But the mind of Captain Arnold was concerned
with greater projects than the reputation of the Governor’s Guards,
or the siege of Boston.

CHAPTER III

TICONDEROGA
L Arnold Seeks His Fortune.

On his arrival at Cambridge, Captain Benedict Arnold at once
waited upon the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, and proposed
to this body the immediate seizure of Ticonderoga and Crown
Point. The project had been in his mind for some time, although
this was his first statement of it. Obviously, he had guarded his
ideas for his personal attention, but there is evidence that he had
some months before made inquiries as to the royal armament at
these forts. He had knowledge of the works, for he had served
there as a boy, and he had reliable reports that they were in poor
repair and weakly garrisoned. His fear that others would strike
at the same objective was realized, and was soon to be the cause
of much wrangling and bitterness. The advantages of the project,
indeed, were obvious. In the first place, there was known to be a
great store of cannon, shot and other munitions of war in the
arsenal at Ticonderoga. Cannon, especially, were needed to make
the arsenal effective. Secondly, and most important to Arnold’s am-
bitions, these fortresses commanded the main route between Canada
and the South. They had been built to check the French invasions
by the narrow lakes, and to serve as a base for attacks upon the
French. And thus, in American hands, they might frustrate the
advance of royal forces from the North, and serve as the starting
point for an expedition to quell the British influence in Canada, and
unite her to the rebel colonies in the armed protest. If Benedict
Arnold, by a bold stroke, could seize the famous passage, strengthen
it against reprisal, and at the same time send to Cambridge ord-

2 6

BENEDICT ARNOLD

nance for the reduction of Boston, he might well hope for the
command of an army against Montreal and Quebec, and, with the
addition of this vast territory, for fortune, rank and honor.

As the young Napoleon, in his ambition, was to seek the com-
mand of the distant Army of Italy, so the adventurer Arnold
looked to this remote province for his making. Miles of wilderness
would separate him from the southern centers of population, with
the lakes and the sea as the only open lines of communication. It
was an ideal field for one of his commanding temperament, so
ungovernable, so energetic and ambitious a soldier of fortune. What
power he sought cannot be told, and indeed his ambition was too
strong and the elements of uncertainty too great for himself to
plan the ultimate future definitely. It is not probable that he hoped
for a crown. He did not act on principle, he had a weakness for
speculation, but he was not one who followed impulse and glitter-
ing probability. The colonies were to become the first large experi-
ment in democracy, and many able men believed that the experi-
ment would fail, and some sort of monarchy become necessary.
But Arnold was a man whose breadth of view and sound judg-
ment were warped only when personal antagonisms inflamed him,
and he was not a student of government and had shown no interest
in politics. It is probable that he sought a basis of wealth and fame,
on which to lay a career of power. Canada was his ambition till
the last years of the war; with its final failure he turned, with
the eager recklessness of a losing gambler, to the desperate ventures
that brought his ruin.

But of all this he said nothing to the Massachusetts Committee
of Safety. His plan was the surprise of Ticonderoga, and he set it
before these worthy gentlemen with a fulness of detail and an
energetic directness which convinced them of its advantages and
almost certain success. In this he was aided by the friendship of
the most influential member of the Committee, Dr. Joseph Warren.
The men were not alike. Warren had the outstanding qualities of
Washington: he was not only a courageous and substantial soldier,

TICONDEROGA

but a tB2ii of high principle, firmly devoted to his cause, a leader
whose wisdom was supported by tact. They were friends because
he admired Arnold’s forceful ability, encouraged him, and ad-
vanced hirn on his chosen course. Others were talking of the
exploit, but Arnold was the choice of the Committee of Safety.

Within two weeks of his arrival at the camp, Benedict Arnold
received a Colonel’s commission from the Provincial Congress of
Massachusetts, and his marching orders, dated May third, 1775,
from the Committee of Safety. The matter, of course, was conducted
with secrecy. He received money, ammunition and horses. He was
to go to the western part of the colony and recruit from that
general region a body of men, not to exceed four hundred, with
which he was to march at once on Ticonderoga. After the capture,
he was to leave a sufficient armament for the defense of the fortress,
and to return in person with that which might best be used at Cam-
bridge. In his usual vigorous manner, and in the knowledge that
the utmost speed was essential to success. Colonel Arnold bade a
hasty farewell to his comrades of the Governor’s Guards, all but
a dozen of whom shortly returned to contribute to the security of
their native colony and town, and had soon left Cambridge far
behind him.

II. The Lake Passage.

To the patriot leaders of the western towns the Colonel dis-
patched letters asserting his authority as c o mmander of the forces
against Ticonderoga and calling for their cooperation in recruiting
his men. These gentlemen had been as busy in the defense of their
liberties as the Whigs of New Haven. “The poor Tories,” as the
Rev. Thomas Allen, of Pittsfield, “fighing Parson Allen,” wrote to
a colleague in the good work, “are mortified & grieved & are wheel-
ing about, & begin to take the quick step.” They, also, had an eager
interest in Ticonderoga, like Arnold’s, spurred on by current in-
formation con fir min g the inadequacy of the garrison and the ruin-

BENEDICT ARNOLD

ous condition of the works. One interested Yankee had spied out
the place in the guise of a whiskered countryman looking for a
barber. In another letter, written while Arnold was yet on his way
across the hills, the Rev. Allen had exciting news on this matter
to impart:

“I have the pleasure to acquaint you that a number of Gentle-
men from Connecticut went from this place last Tuesday morning,
having been joined by Col. Easton, Capt. Dickinson & Mr. Brown,
with 40 soldiers, on an Expedition against Ticonderoga and Crown
Point, expecting to be reinforced by a Thousand Men from the
Grants above here; a Post having previously taken his Departure
to inform Col. Ethan Allen of the Design, and desiring him to hold
his Green Mountain Boys in actual readiness. The Expedition has
been carried on with the utmost Secresy, as they are in hopes of
taking those forts by surprise. We expect they will reach those
forts by Saturday next, or Lord’s Day at farthest. ... We earnestly
pray for success to this important expedition, as the taking of those
places would afford us a key to all Canada.”

Although his following of wild frontiersmen was far from the
expected thousand men, it was to the aspiring, impetuous Ethan
Allen, an outlaw through his protest against the injustice of a
colonial court, that the c omm and of this enterprise was accorded
by its members, and the little potpourri of Connecticut, Massa-
chusetts and Vermont enthusiasts, not two hundred strong, marched
with all speed upon its prey.

Arnold, of course, was at once informed of the rival undertaking.
There was no time to wait for recruits. He left the few officers who
had accompanied him to attend to that detail, and set out in pur-
suit. On the evening of the ninth of May, he overtook Allen’s
anomalous muster, showed them his commission, and, as they acted
on no public authorization whatever, claimed the command. To
the soldiers, who were accustomed to choose their own officers,
and who had no especial reverence for paper authority, this was
impertinent presumption from an outsider, and they treated it as

TICONDEROGA

such. The newcomer’s actual command consisted of one man only,
his body servant, to them a badge of the indolent aristocracy. They
rested impatiently on their arms. The leaders dismounted and con-
ferred.

Ethan Allen was a man of Arnold’s own stamp and with similar
ambitions for a career of glory in the north, albeit less capable of
carrying them out; like Arnold, he was haunted by misfortune in
his adventurous life and died in the ignominy of a traitor, chiefly
for the despised and dreaded crime of publicly denying the divine
authority of the Bible. He was a coarse, gigantic man. To him is
ascribed the feat of twisting a ten-penny nail in twain with his
teeth. He strode back among his men and they put their heads
together in hasty confabulation.

“What shall I do with the damned rascal, put him under
guard?”

But time was more precious than technicalities, and Colonel
Arnold was allowed to join them, without definite rank, still claim-
ing the supremacy but issuing no orders. On that night the men
emerged from the forest upon the lake shore, across whose narrow
surface, above the black horizon, the gray walls of the fortress
rose.

Only a few small boats could be found. The men tugged furi-
ously at their oars, back and forth, across the smooth, dark water,
in the desperate effort to bring the whole force into action before
the sunrise could betray them. A surprise would save a well-nigh
hopeless assault on the tall stone ramparts for the attackers were
without cannon. But it was at the head of scarce half their company
that Allen and Arnold hastened through the gray mists of early
dawn, rushed up a narrow path and into the arched shadow of a
sally port in the wall. The wicket in the gate stood open. A sentry
lunged at one of the passing shadows, there was a momentary
scuffle, but the men poured in irresistibly. Their officers struggled
to form them in the barrack square, as the sleeping garrison was
roused by their savage cheers. There was furious confusion in the

BENEDICT ARNOLD

darkness, doors crashed down before musket butt and tomahawk,
there was whooping and cursing as the redcoats were dragged from
their bunks.

Allen, in this proud moment, called loudly for Captain Dela-
place, commander of the post, to come forth at once and surrender,
under penalty of the massacre of the entire garrison. “At which,”
as he afterward set the matter down for posterity, “the Captain
came immediately to the door with his breeches in his hand, when
I ordered him to deliver to me the fort instantly, who asked by
what authority I demanded it: I answered him, ‘In the name of
the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress.’” Delaplace
seemed dubious at this, but a determined flourish of the furious
provincial’s sword and Arnold’s calmer advice, “Give up your arms
and you’ll be treated like gentlemen,” decided him, and he ordered
his garrison, some forty sour and disheveled warriors, to parade
without their arms.

“The sun seemed to rise that morning with a superior luster,”
the victor goes on in his memoir, “and Ticonderoga and its de-
pendencies smiled on its conquerors, who tossed round the flowing
bowl, and wished success to Congress and the liberty and freedom
of America.” The accord, however, was a brief one. Matters were
not so smooth as they may have seemed in later years, and there
was much work to be done. The business of the day was to take
stock of the captured arsenal, which did justice to the expectations
of all.

On the eleventh. Colonel Allen dispatched letters to various
parts, telling of the victory and the extent of the conquest. “Gentle-
men,” he announced to a committee at Albany: “I have the inex-
pressible satisfaction to inform you that on day-break of the 10th
instant, pursuant to my directions from sundry leading gentlemen
of Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut, I took the fortress of Ticon-
deroga, with about one hundred and thirty Green Mountain Boys.
Colonel Easton with about forty-seven valiant soldiers distinguished
themselves in the action. Colonel Arnold entered the fortress with

TICONDEROGA

me side by side.” With a request for immediate reinforcements, he
closed the letter, “Ethan Allen, Commander of Ticonderoga.” In
his letter to the Congress of Massachusetts, he extolled the services
of Colonel James Easton and John Brown, Attorney-at-law, of that
colony, but made no mention of Arnold whatever. Obviously, there
was trouble brewing. Arnold’s Regimental Memorandum Book,
containing his account of the campaign, opens with an irate state-
ment.

“When Mr. Adlen, finding he has a strong party, and being im-
patient to control, and taking umbrage at my forbidding the people
to plunder, he assumed the entire command, and I was not con-
sulted for four days, which time I spent in the Garrison.

“N. B. As a private person often insulted by him and his of-
ficers, often threatened with my life, and twice shot at by his men
with their Fusees.”

Everything in Arnold’s nature would urge him to bring the
matter to a crisis as soon as possible, and one can readily imagine
how the insult implied in the order against plundering must have
warmed the ire of his comrades in arms. The Green Mountain
Boys, indeed, were only too ready to overindulge their taste for
confiscation. Arnold had a more soldierly view of the matter, and
knew the perils of a riotous irregularity. With his usual aggressive-
ness, he was putting himself forward as the representative of au-
thority among men who knew no rules but those of their own
making. Failing to frighten the pretender into submission by
threats of violence and occasional sudden discharges of musketry
in his direction, they produced a paper purporting to give Allen
legal authority from Connecticut, but the ruse was equally un-
availing.

“I should be extremely glad to be honorably quit of my com-
mission, and that a proper person might be appointed in my
room,” Arnold informed the Provincial Congress in a tone of
modest resignation. He had, of course, no thought of surrender.
“Colonel Allen,” he told the Committee of Safety with more truth,

BENEDICT ARNOLD

“is a proper person to lead his own wild people, but entirely un-
acquainted with military service.”

To James Easton and John Brown he had taken a poisonous
dislike. Easton, who had successfully combined the professions of
deacon and innkeeper by virtue of a confiding nature and a taste
for local diplomacies, claimed the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and
Arnold, in assertion of his stated right to appoint his own officers,
refused to recognize it. Brown, rational in his habits, but readily
stirred to exasperation, was at heart a lawyer. In his adopted pro-
fession of arms, he was to prove himself a brave and most effective
bluffer. He was a Yale graduate, had pamphleteered against the
mob spirit of the Boston “tea party,” and his legal mind was now
greatly disturbed by Arnold’s assertions of authority and the dicta-
torial freedom of his conduct in meeting military necessity. As he
had read law with Oliver Arnold, Attorney-General of Rhode
Island and a cousin of his enemy, the two were probably not un-
acquainted. Easton now announced his intention of carrying the
whole matter before Congress and securing the withdrawal of the
trouble-maker’s shadowy authority. An endless succession of such
quarrels, suspicions, appeals, hindered and delayed the headstrong
ambitions of Arnold throughout the war. In his angry efforts to
pursue them, force them to the surface and crush them, he only
multiplied their number and increased the tangle.

At Ticonderoga, there was the perfect setting for a luxury of
feud and faction. Arnold was in an agony of suppressed rage. He
had authority, but nothing wherewith to enforce it. He had not
only won no glory, but his reputation was to be attacked. These
swashbucklers threatened his whole career. He kept apart from
them. They watched him contemptuously, and sniffed with pleas-
ure the acrid smoke of his smouldering fury. After the surrender,
Arnold had again put forward his claims to command, urging
the necessity of bringing the ordnance to Cambridge according to
his orders. But there was no more thought of submission on one
side than on the other, and the courts of appeal were very far away.

TICONDEROGA

Allen was eager for a campaign to the northward, and shortly after
the capture, his men took possession also of the fort at Crown Point,
at the southern extremity of Lake Champlain. Prudently, however,
he shunned as much as possible the personal hostility to Arnold.
The hostile faction was led by Easton, who assiduously devoted
himself to ruining the good fame of his enemy, enlarging on the
subject before the officers and men of the expedition, and writing
vehement letters to all who might use authority to curb him. An
account of the capture was published, omitting all mention of
Arnold and stating that it was to Easton that the Commandant had
surrendered his sword, a claim which Delaplace himself denied.
A partisan of Arnold wrote in indignant refutation. Arnold was the
first to enter the fort, he said, Allen about five yards behind, and
Easton the last man of all, “he having concealed himself in an old
barrack near the redoubt, under the pretence of wiping and drying
his gun, which he said had got wet in crossing the lake; since
which I have often heard Col. Easton, in a base and cowardly
manner, abuse Col. Arnold behind his back, though very com-
plaisant before his face.” But things moved swiftly at Ticonderoga,
and Arnold’s opportunity soon arrived.

On Sunday, the fourteenth of May, his henchmen. Captains
Oswald and Brown, arrived with fifty recruits and the schooner
Liberty, captured at Skenesborough on the way. Eleazer Oswald
was an old friend and comrade of the Governor’s Guards, who had
linked his own to Arnold’s rising fortunes. Arnold had now a
force of his own, and his pent-up energy burst into action. He
informed the Continental Congress, which had assembled at Phila-
delphia on the day of the fall of Ticonderoga, that the vessel had
been seized by his orders, and that a few hours more of delay would
have prevented it.

“I ordered a party to Skenesborough,” he told the Massachusetts
Committee of Safety on the day of the arrival, “to take Major
Skene, who have made him prisoner and seized a small schooner,
which is just arrived here. I intend setting out in her direcdy, with

BENEDICT ARNOLD

a batteau and fifty men, to take possession of the sloop, which we
are advised this morning by the post, is at St. Johns, loaded with
provisions, etc., waiting a wind for this place. . . .

“I have about one hundred men here, and expect more every
minute. Mr. Allen’s party is decreasing and the dispute between us
subsiding. ... I have done everything in my power and put up
with many insults to preserve the peace and serve the publick. I
hope soon to be properly released from this troublesome business.”
Under the matter-of-fact style of this arch-optimism lies the subtle
endeavor to combat evil report and secure his reputation as a slave
to duty and a man of honor.

By the fifteenth, Arnold had armed the schooner with four
carriage and six swivel guns, manned her with his fifty men, and
advanced his force to Crown Point. Allen was also at that place.
The fort of St. Johns, about eighty miles distant at the northern-
most point of the lake, and but a short march from Montreal, was
now the objective. The sloop known to be there was an armed
vessel of seventy tons, much larger than the schooner, and, as
Arnold realized, would give a tremendous advantage to its posses-
sor in the transportation of troops upon the lakes. Arnold planned
a raid, Allen a capture. A council of war was held, and the rival
leaders came to an agreement: they would advance at once upon
St. Johns, Allen in bateaux, Arnold in his newly-won schooner.

On the sixteenth, they all started down the lake, Allen’s men
heaving at their oars, the Liberty some miles ahead of them, tacking
back and forth across the narrow water against a head wind. But
the wind shifted on the following day and blew from the south,
and the schooner, with all sail crowded on her, left the laboring
oarsmen far behind. By nightfall, she was within a few miles of
the post. The wind falling, Arnold manned two boats with thirty-
five men, and rowed all night, reaching St. Johns at six in the
morning. He surprised and captured a sergeant and twelve men.
The royal sloop, later renamed the 'Enterprise, large, chubby, and a
poor sailer, but a great addition to his strength, was taken, and in

TICONDEROGA

addition, there were bateaux, cannon and other supplies. His stay
was short. Everything that was fit for use was loaded on shipboard,
and the rest destroyed. The wind was from the north, and Arnold
took to the water again, leaving St. Johns under a column of smoke
behind him.

“The wind springing up fair at 9 oc’k,” as the vindictive Arnold
jotted down laconically in his memoranda, “weighed anchor and
stood up the Lake, and at noon met Colonel Allen, and his party
of 100 mad fellows going to take possession of St. Johns, and not
being able to persuade him from so rash a purpose, supplied him
with provisions, &c.” As the sailing ships bore down on the little
flotilla of bateaux, they saluted with a triumphant explosion from
their armament. This Allen answered with a rattle of small arms.
The cannon of the ships bellowed down the lake again, and the
exchange of salutes was three times repeated. This done, Allen and
his officers boarded the sloop, and all gathered in the cabin, “where
several loyal Congress healths were drunk.” Colonel Arnold blandly
inquired what the plans of Colonel Allen might be. Colonel Allen
replied with dignified determination that he intended to occupy
and hold St. Johns in the face of all that Governor Carleton might
bring against him.

Arnold was not perturbed at this thrust into his chosen field
for conquest. “It appeared to me,” he deftly informed the Commit-
tee of Safety, “a wild, impracticable scheme, and provided it could
be carried into execution, of no consequence, as long as we are
masters of the Lake.” He had supplied Allen with provisions, he
went on, “his men being in a starving condition,” and concluded
with the hope that no ear would be given to the talebearers. “I
know of no other motive they can have, only my refusing them
commissions for the very simple reason I did not think them
qualified.” Probably he was well satisfied to see his rival proceed
on this hazardous undert akin g, that he might be left undisturbed
at the more important points. Ethan Allen, however, had scarcely
arrived at the ruined and dismantled garrison than he was attacked

36 BENEDICT ARNOLD

by a superior force and obliged to seek Liberty in a precipitate
retreat.

Arnold returned at once to Ticonderoga and the work of arming
his ship, gathering supplies, repairing the fortifications, mounting
cannon upon them and dispatching guns to Cambridge. Allen, we
learn from a letter of June first, had lost some of his ardor after
the repulse at St. Johns. Arnold was busy with the work of defense.
On the tenth of June, he sailed to Crown Point on this business.
He arrived at five in the evening, and learned that Allen, Easton
and Major Samuel Elmore of Connecticut were at the post and
had just called a council. The relentless fire-eater promptly sum-
moned all to a council of his own. They demurred, with excuses.
“On which I wrote the counsell,” as he briefly recorded it, “that I
could not consistently with my duty suffer any illegall counsells,
meetings, &c., as they tended to raise a mutiny, that at present I
was the only legal Commanding Officer and should not suffer my
command to be disputed, but would willingly give up the command
when anyone appeared with proper authority to take it. This had
the desired effect and they gave up their expectation of command-
ing”

Nevertheless, he doubled all the guards to prevent opposition.
During the night, Allen and his officers essayed to go past the
sloop without showing a pass, and were brought to by the sentinels.
They returned to the post, and a vehement altercation followed.
Arnold was making a forceful explanation to Elmore when Easton,
who was armed at the time with two pistols and a cutlass, angrily
intruded between them. He was answered by a blow in the face
from the infuriated Arnold, who, when he failed to respond with
a challenge, kicked him from the room.

“I had the pleasure,” wrote an eyewitness, “of seeing him
heartily kicked by Colonel Arnold, to the great satisfaction of a
number of gentlemen present.” Arnold himself noted the incident
with terse relish. “I took the liberty of breaking his head, and on his
refusing to draw like a gentleman, he having a hanger by his side

TICONDEROGA

and a case of loaded Pistols in his pocket, I kicked him very
heartily and ordered him from the point immediately.” There
were, however, broader differences on the subject of Colonel Ar-
nold’s authority than those which gave rise to these lively doings.

III. The Fire-eater Deposed.

The capture of “Ty,” as the soldiers called the place, had startled
the country almost as much as the news of Lexington. This was an
act of offensive war against the crown, and much as they rejoiced
in the possession of the fort, the colonies eagerly took refuge from
blame in the informal origin and composition of the force that had
accomplished it. What to do with it, now that the place had been
taken, was moreover, a knotty problem for the statesmen. Eager
as Massachusetts, the nest of radicalism, had been for its seizure,
she was equally fearful of incurring the hostility of other colonies
in a dispute over spoils or a question of jurisdiction. The tactful
Warren perfecdy understood the possible jealousy of the colonies,
the actual jealousy of the factions at the fort, and he handled the
situation with caution. As soon as it was learned that the capture
had been made by an expedition originating in Connecticut, Massa-
chusetts relinquished to her all jurisdiction in the matter, asking
only that cannon, could it be spared, be sent to Cambridge. And
Warren added, as a suggestion, that Colonel Arnold might be
allowed to bring such ordnance to the besieging army, “as a means
of settling any dispute which may have arisen between him and
some other officers.”

Arnold received copies of this correspondence and was perfectly
aware of the situation. In reality, therefore, the authority by which
he claimed supremacy had been withdrawn, and he knew it. But
to retire would have been surrender to enemies whom he despised,
a wound to his honor. His determination was to remain, to secure
the lake passage against assault by the British, and against mis-
management by Allen, who had departed to seek in person from

38 BENEDICT ARNOLD

the legislators of New York and the Continental Congress a definite
command against Canada. He entered into communication with
Governor Trumbull of Connecticut. He discussed the possibilities
of an invasion of Canada. He had already sent scouts and messen-
gers north, and had found the Indians friendly, and a hope of
welcome from the Canadian malcontents. “I have wrote very fully
on the subject to the honourable Continental Congress,” he an-
nounced in a secret dispatch, “and sketched out a plan for taking
possession of the country, if thought advisable by them.” The people
of the lake region came to rely on his vigorous personality to pro-
tect them from the scalping knives of the Five Nations, and a
number of them gathered and pledged him their support in writ-
ing. All that was needed for his final establishment on the threshold
to Canada and a career of conquest and glory was an official sanction
to his plans, and in this he was utterly ignored.

New York, which claimed the territory on which the fortress
stood, had more urgent matters for attention and turned over the
control to Connecticut, for the nonce, asking Trumbull to provide
a commander and garrison. The Governor, accordingly, commis-
sioned Colonel Benjamin Hinman for this duty, and sent him to
the front with a reinforcement of almost a thousand men.

On Saturday, the seventeenth of June, Colonel Arnold was at
Crown Point. His men were bringing in timber, repairing the bar-
racks, making oars for the bateaux and entrenching. In the midst
of all this, Hinman arrived and presented his credentials. The ob-
stinate adventurer refused to acknowledge defeat, refused to resign
his command: “As he produced no regular orders for the same, I
refused to give it up, on which he embarked for Ticonderoga.” At
Ticonderoga, Arnold’s men remained under the command of a
Captain Herrick, but Hinman, a pacific, inactive person, had a
sufficient force of his own and displayed no animosity.

“Colonel Hinman,” wrote Trumbull to the Massachusetts au-
thorities, “writes that he is in quiet possession of Ticonderoga and
does not find that there are any enemies about him. ” Arnold was

TICONDEROGA

the victim of intercolonial diplomacy, but he had no intention of
abandoning the course of honor and ambition. He had still a foot-
hold in the gateway to the north, he had spent a part of his own
fortune in the maintenance of its garrison, and he meant to hold
what he had to the last ditch.

The last ditch, in due course, was reached. The Congress of
Massachusetts learned that Arnold, in defiance of its orders, had
declined to recognize the authority of Connecticut. To Arnold, the
whole affair involved a reflection upon his ability as an officer and
his honor as a gentleman. He openly attributed it to the invented
scandals of his enemies, who, indeed, had stirred up a cloud of
malicious tales of lawless violence, embezzling and mismanagement.
It was in vain that the Congress assured him it would act on no
accusations without a full hearing. He insisted that every attempt
to deprive him of his power was the result of personal enmity and
intrigue, and hurled back a torrent of vehement expostulation upon
the legislators. They, however, refused to be abashed and appointed
a committee of three to repair at once to Ticonderoga, examine into
the state of the fortifications and the conduct of their troublesome
Colonel, and, if thought fit, discharge him from the service of the
colony.

Receiving its instructions on the fourteenth of June, the com-
mittee arrived at Crown Point on the twenty-second. The Colonel
received them cordially. Reports had come in that the British meant
to retake the forts, and he showed them with enthusiasm his
preparations for their coming. There was a sudden change when
they made known their instructions: he was expected to resign his
command to Colonel Hinman; his conduct was to be looked into.
Arnold was furious. He was, the committee reported, “greatly dis-
concerted, and declared he would not be second in command to
any person whomsoever.” He brooded sulkily till his rage and dis-
appointment had cooled a little. He then presented his resignation
to the committee in a letter, the terms of which they pronounced
highly disrespectful. A brief flurry followed. Arnold sent orders to

BENEDICT ARNOLD

Captain Herrick to resign the command to Hinman, and ordered
all of his troops immediately disbanded. The committee, which had
appointed Easton second in command, the post which Arnold
might have had, attempted to reenlist the disbanded soldiery. A
number of them undertook to prevent this by forceful measures.
The mutineers held possession of the ships. A party sent to parley
with them was met by a discharge of musketry and swivel guns,
was finally allowed to come on board, only to be seized and
guarded with fixed bayonets. These disturbances, however, soon
yielded to persuasion.

Arnold rode for Cambridge, sending before him a letter to the
Provincial Congress complaining of the outrage. He mentioned
his devotion to duty and his sacrifices in the cause, in spite of which
a younger officer of equal rank had superseded him, without due
inquiry into his conduct, “a very plain intimation,” he declared,
“that the Congress are dubious of my rectitude or abilities, which
is a sufficient inducement for me to decline serving them longer.”

IV. The Honorable Continental Congress Reconsiders.

In the meantime, the Continental Congress at Philadelphia had
been changing its mind. It had, on June first, resolved against any
expedition of any sort into Canada, and ordered the resolution
transmitted to Ticonderoga and published to the Canadians. There
was a constitutional vindication for defensive measures; an inva-
sion of the northern province would savor too much of treason and
revolt. But in warfare any aggression is in a sense defensive, a rea-
soning which has been of value to persuaders and apologists in
many a crisis. It was argued, however, that to send an army to
Canada was not hostility, but an act of good will, a demonstration
which would inspire these northern brethren to rise in assertion of
their liberties.

To the military men, it seemed most urgent. The experience
of the colonial wars had impressed upon them the ease with which

TICONDEROGA

Canada could resist attack. The Canadians must be won over while
the forces of the Governor-General, Sir Guy Carleton, were still
inadequate to command complete submission. England must be
deprived of this base and source of supply. The struggle, in any
event, would create a diversion in favor of Boston and perhaps
prevent an attack upon New York. It would secure the frontier
against Indian raids, and hush the awesome, creeping fears of popery
and the Inquisition. Narrowly, the opposition was voted down, and
the Congress had changed its mind.

Among those whose pleas had influenced the new decision were
the two quarrelsome Colonels of Ticonderoga, Benedict Arnold and
Ethan Allen. Arnold had written from Crown Point on June
thirteenth, and sent the letter by Captain Oswald, who could
represent him in person and satisfy any inquiries as to the details of
the situation. He opened this epistle of hortatory suggestion by
observing that he had felt it his duty to acquaint the Congress with
certain reliable reports from the north, namely, that the Indians
had determined to give no assistance to the English, and that, by
reports from Montreal, “great numbers of the Canadians have ex-
pected a visit from us for some time and are very impatient of our
delay, as they are determined to join us whenever we appear in
the Country with a force sufficient to support them.” Governor
Carleton, he went on, had in vain exhausted every effort to raise a
sufficient defense. Two thousand men might easily conquer Mont-
real and Quebec, and he outlined a plan of action for the campaign.

The army, he suggested, would sail up the lakes to within two
miles of St. Johns. Here a body of three hundred would remain
with the shipping to secure a retreat, while seven hundred invested
the forts of St. Johns and Chambly and one thousand attacked
Montreal. It was already arranged that the gates of Montreal should
be opened by friends from within, and the army might proceed at
once against Quebec. To hold Quebec, he believed, already a strong
fortress and well supplied by the outlying country, would be less
costly than the rebuilding of Ticonderoga. The rich yield of the

BENEDICT ARNOLD

Canadian fur trade and wheat fields, moreover, would be America’s
as long as the British ministry continued its coercive measures.

“I hope the exigency of the times,” he concluded, “and my zeal
in the service of my country, will apologize for the liberty of giving
my sentiments so freely on a subject which the honourable Congress
are doubtless the best judges of, but which they in their hurry
may not have paid that attention the matter requires. I beg leave
to add, that if no person appears who will undertake to carry the
plan into execution (if thought advisable), I will undertake, and,
with the smiles of Heaven, answer for the success of it.” He added
a postscript on the menace of Canada in British hands, and stated
the armament and camp equipment required for invasion. Colonel
Hinman’s regiment would form half the army, five hundred could
be brought from New York, B. Arnold’s regiment of five hundred
would complete the force, and there would be no Green Mountain
Boys.

Colonel Allen had delivered his proposals verbally to the Con-
gress, which had received him with distinction and listened with
growing interest to his appeal for immediate invasion. The hero of
Ticonderoga was authorized to raise a regiment of Green Mountain
Boys. To neither of the two Colonels, however, was awarded the
command of the northern department. Arnold was disqualified by
his quarrels and the reports of his enemies, his defiance of Con-
necticut and his dismissal from the service of Massachusetts. Silas
Deane, member from Arnold’s own colony, sedulously recom-
mended the merits of his friend, in whom he had thus aroused a
false expectation that he could depend on the support of Congress.
Efficient as Arnold might be proven, Congress preferred the slower,
more judicial type of officer, and distrusted the venturesome, ambi-
tious spirit who might become a Caesar to overthrow their preco-
cious republic. Allen was a popular and effective officer, but obvi-
ously could not be relied upon for generalship in so hazardous and
delicate an undertaking. The command was accorded to a member
from New York, a powerful landholder of the Dutch stock, a man

TICONDEROGA

with some military experience and a business capacity, a tall, lean
aristocrat whose brown hair hung in profusion around a florid,
bright-eyed, nervously quizzical face, Major-General Philip Schuy-
ler.

Schuyler was well acquainted with Arnold’s plan of invasion,
and admired the man’s ability. He made cautious soundings as to
whether it would be inadvisable for him to receive the post of
Deputy Adjutant-General of the New York forces. It was, indeed,
considered imprudent and the matter dropped. As for Allen, the
General distrusted him, but he went with the army. His career
was a short one: pushing impetuously ahead of the advance, he
attempted to seize Montreal on his own, threw the city into a brief
confusion by the terror of his name, was suddenly and ignominiously
cut off, captured and shipped away to England and a long imprison-
ment.

V. A Bold Project Hatched.

Thus early in his adventures, Benedict Arnold had come to
know that taunting ill-fortune which followed him throughout the
war, which brought great enterprises to a halt in a tangle of ma-
licious whisperings, of petty bickering and hoarse turbulence. He
had won a place of command at the door to Canada, had strength-
ened and held it with soldierly ability. And now, without rank and
in disgrace, he rode into Cambridge with a few loyal followers of
his scattered regiment. Two weeks before, his wife had died, and
his patron, Warren, had fallen in the defense of Bunker Hill.
Bitter disappointment he had found, but not defeat. Nothing could
ever shake the fierce, relentless ambition of this proud warrior.
Hannah Arnold would care for the children at New Haven, and
in Cambridge he found a new friend, a man like Warren, above
the petty rancors and disputes, who recognized his qualities and
determined to use them.

General Washington, viewing the matter with his usual calm

BENEDICT ARNOLD

circumspection, believed the conquest of Canada of the highest im-
portance in his business of reducing the British ministry to terms.
He had assumed command of the army at Cambridge at about the
time of Arnold’s return. Congress, unfortunately the deciding power
in this matter, had provided him with a motley array of subordi-
nates, from Charles Lee, that whimsical, careless soldier of fortune,
his second in command, or that good-hearted ruffian “Old Put,”
delighting his men with a flood of deep-voiced imprecations in a
lisp, to such able patriot-soldiers as John Thomas or Nathanael
Greene. He was looking for military talent, and the fire-eater mer-
chant of New Haven impressed him well.

Arnold passed the days in sallow impatience. From Cambridge
he had returned to New Haven, and, before he had been able to
load his ship for a West Indian venture, had been prostrated by
an attack of gout. As he lay in aching misery, broken only by fits
of cold agony along the swollen leg, the Congress of Massachusetts
had summoned him to appear and settle his account for the Ticon-
deroga expedition, and this brought him again to Cambridge, as
soon as he was able to mount horse, his ship still waiting at the
wharf. The legislators bickered over the money for a while, and at
last grudgingly allowed him eight hundred and nineteen dollars,
a thousand less than he had demanded, to cover his expenditures,
and the money was forwarded to the family at New Haven.

In August, he was still hoping for a post with the army of in-
vasion, now pushing slowly northward. The influence of his friends
was unavailing. To increase the bitterness, he had, when he first
heard of Schuyler’s interest in him, in his eager optimism and in
vindication of his honor, announced the appointment as a certain
one. And then, with romantic suddenness, there came the oppor-
tunity for an invasion of Canada at the head of an army of his own,
for an exploit of hazard and glory after his own heart.

The plan was to cooperate with Schuyler by sending a force
through the wilderness of Maine to surprise and capture Quebec.
The route was little known and a large body of men had never

wtmmm

MARGARET AND EDWARD SHIPPEN ARNOLD, 1784

From the portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence in the
collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania

TICONDEROGA

traversed it. Its military value had been considered for more than a
century and after the addition of Canada to the empire surveyors
had roughly charted its course.

It is uncertain by what steps the scheme took shape at head-
quarters. During the wrangle at the lake passage a distinguished
fellow citizen had offered to lead the troops of Massachusetts over
this unf ami liar warpath. For Arnold to have presented a plan
would have been in keeping with his persistent nature: with ambi-
tion and honor still in the north, if one way failed, he would find
another. He had even a minor interest in reaching Quebec, as a
ship of his, long , at sea, was bound thither and might be seized by
the enemy. Certainly he privately intended his position there to
be commercial as well as military; that, also, was his nature.

It may have been Washington who made the first proposal; in
any case, the decision rested with him. Arnold was his choice for
the leader: no bawling militiaman, but a soldier, and a good soldier,
qualified by his knowledge of the country and his friends among
its citizens, by his ambition, and the itching stain upon his honor.
With Arnold gathering information, detailing plans, fuming at
every delay, the Commander-in-chief deliberated, consulted Schuyler
and other officers.

The headquarters was strong in approval, and when at last an
express from the northwest rode in with Schuyler’s promise of
cooperation, the General unleashed his impetuous warrior, now a
Colonel of the Continental Line. His path to glory lay by sea to the
mouth of the Kennebec, and still northward against the current of
the river, more than a hundred miles into the loneliest wilderness,
and then a weary march northwestward to the Dead River and a
treacherous tangle of lake and morass and mountain, across the
summit that divides the waters of New England and the waters
of the St. Lawrence, and down to Quebec at last, by a hundred miles
of boiling rapids, a wild river which the French had named “the
Cauldron,” La Chaudiere.

CHAPTER IV

THE DARK EAGLE DESCENDS ON CANADA
I. A Band of Heroes.

All the while that this peppery broth of northern conquest had
been in the brewing, little companies of patriots from South and
West and North had been crowding the ranks of the army at
Cambridge. Captains’, majors’, colonels’ commissions depended
chiefly on the number of soldiers a local man of might could bring
in behind him. It was a strange, mushroom army, with an im-
provised organization: a swarm of officers, most of them eagerly
and actively jealous of rank and pay, and a come-and-go-easy rank
and file who frowned on all notions of discipline because they
conflicted with the rights of freemen and spoiled the fun of soldier-
ing. Informal bands of stern-eyed farmers were there, and gay
militia had come swinging in to fife and drum, and lanky riflemen
in fringed hunting dress and moccasins had proved their toughness
in swift marches from the far frontiers. Old General Wooster, at
last, had assembled his men at church for a parting prayer, and
led them northward in good array.

One body of men, nearing the camp at sunrise after a forced
march of forty miles through mud and rain, passed a tavern
whose sign pictured a globe with a man struggling to crawl
through it. And the legend beneath, “Oh, how shall I get through
this world?” was answered by a weary soldier from the ranks,
“ ’List, damn you, ’list!” There was a fierce eagerness to be at the
front, and the camp was a busy one. The British, weakened and
discouraged after the carnage at Bunker Hill, were held close within
their lines. The foreign soldiery who had raced their horses upon

DARK EAGLE DESCENDS ON CANADA 47

the Sabbath Day and had made their bands play ‘Yankee Doodle”
and “Nancy Dawson” by the meeting house windows were to learn
the vengeance of God’s wrath upon their wantonness, as many a
somber-faced minute-man must have reflected with pleasure. By
the fall of ’seventy-five, the besieging army had grown so large
that Washington could with both safety and convenience detach
a thousand men for the expedition by the Kennebec and the
Chaudiere.

The men were volunteers, accepted only with the condition that
they be “active woodsmen, well acquainted with batteaux.” There
were some seven hundred and eighty musketeers, New Englanders,
armed with the heavy but powerful firelock and the bayonet, by
current standards of warfare the most effective troops. Their weap-
ons, however, were cumbersome implements and required more
skill than they often possessed, allowing the enemy to receive a dis-
charge and then come in with the bayonet before they could reload.
There were ten companies of them, divided into two battalions,
one commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Enos, of Vermont,
and Major Return Jonathan Meigs, another Connecticut Yankee
merchant, the other under Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Greene,
son of a Rhode Island justice, and Major Timothy Bigelow, of
Massachusetts. Like the rest of the army, their dress was entirely
a matter of personal taste and fortune, save for the officers, who
displayed their rank by shoulder straps and side-arms.

In fact, however, these hardy troops were exceeded in endurance
and skill as fighters by the little army’s three companies of riflemen,
two hundred and fifty tall young men of the frontiers, armed with
their peculiarly dangerous weapon, — “beautiful boys,” one of their
leaders called them, “who knew how to handle and aim the rifle.”
They wore the clothing of their country, buckskin breeches, leggins
and moccasins, and, over some sort of under jacket, the loose hunt-
ing shirt, brown or green or gray, hanging almost to the knee,
fringed at skirt and cuff, shoulder and collar, and belted at the
waist. With western disregard for convention, they cut their hair

BENEDICT ARNOLD

short, and covered it with fur caps or their round, broad hats with
the brim turned up on one side, perhaps, and fastened with a cock-
ade. The only fashion which they cared to emulate was that of the
Indians, and many added color to their dress by designs in dyed
porcupine quills or beads. As soldiers, they showed their allegiance
by the motto, on hat or on the broad chest, “Liberty or Death.”
Besides their rifles, “the cursed twisted guns” which the English
soldiers learned to dread in the hands of these “shirt-tail men,”
they carried at the belt small axes and long, keen knives, “Toma-
hawk,” and “scalping knife.”

In June, Congress had ordered the recruiting of six companies
of riflemen in Pennsylvania, two in Virginia and two in Maryland,
to be used as light infantry. And despite the distances from Phila-
delphia to the frontiers and from the frontiers to Cambridge, more
than fourteen hundred men, nearly twice the number expected,
were marching into Cambridge in little over a month’s time. The
Virginians had covered six hundred miles in three weeks. The
Pennsylvanians were but slightly less rapid, their ardor having
been briefly diverted to the tarring and feathering of a Tory or two
by the way. Nor was money spent in the raising, so eager were they
to go and so amply equipped with their own weapons. The Cap-
tains, indeed, had to pick their recruits from the jostle of noisy
lads by rigorous tests of marksmanship. The fame of the coming
of these skilled warriors had spread to England, and the pride of
the patriots in them was not to be disappointed.

If they cared nothing for military discipline, they had had a
stem and life-long training in their own free school of warfare. The
worst were stupid and brutal, the best, men of high intelligence,
quiet and courageous, with a cool, dry humor, unaltered by the
presence of danger. They were carefree young men, most of them,
“always ready for a fight or a frolic,” controlled only by the personal
qualities of their leaders.

One of Arnold’s three companies of riflemen had come from
Virginia under the command of Daniel Morgan, a handsome, deep-

DARK EAGLE DESCENDS ON CANADA 49

voiced giant, two hundred pounds in weight and standing more
than six feet in his moccasins. He had been a teamster with Brad-
dock, and was to become one of Washington’s best-loved generals.
The two other companies were Pennsylvanians. One swore by the
name of Matthew Smith, a man already famous among his own
people by virtue of his part in the murder of a tribe of Indians.
John Joseph Henry, who, as a runaway lad of sixteen, served under
him, describes him in his Account of that Band of Heroes who
Traversed the Wilderness in the Campaign against Quebec. “A
good-looking man,” he noted, “had the air of a soldier, was illiterate
and outrageously talkative.” The third company was led by Wil-
liam Hendricks, “tall,” says Henry, “of a mild and beautiful coun-
tenance,” a man better fitted to inspire a patient heroism in his fol-
lowers.

Yet, in itself, this bold undertaking had a challenge and a
promise of glory that was inspiration enough. It roused young
Aaron Burr, a slim youth of nineteen, from a sickbed, swearing
against all the protests of friends and physicians that he would go
with Arnold to Quebec. He, his friend Matthias Ogden, and a few
other adventurous young gentlemen were allowed to join, under
orders, but paying their own expenses and free to retire if they so
desired. Eleazer Oswald, Arnold’s faithful comrade of the Ticon-
deroga adventure, accompanied him as his private secretary. Besides
the Colonel’s small official family, two surgeons and their assistants,
the Rev. Samuel Spring as Chaplain, two quartermasters, four drum-
mers and two fifers completed the personnel.

Could they but pass the forests, Arnold’s thousand might well
hope for success. For they alone outnumbered all the British regi-
ments in Canada, and, as Washington expounded the matter to
Congress, the Governor-General would be unable to defend both
ends of his domain at once: if he reinforced Quebec, Montreal would
surely fall to Schuyler. But it was hoped and expected that the
great fortress would be taken by surprise, cutting off Sir Guy from
England and insuring the conquest.

BENEDICT ARNOLD

“Use all possible expedition,” Washington admonished in his
instructions to the invader, “as the winter season is now advancing,
and the success of this enterprise, under God, depends wholly on
the spirit with which it is pushed and the favourable dispositions
of the Canadians and Indians.” He bade him by every possible
means to learn the attitude of the Canadian people, as without
their friendship the whole campaign must fail, and to enforce
respect for their religion and property. He was given a manifesto
to publish to these “Friends and Brethren,” haranguing them with
formal unction to join the United Colonies in the protest against
imperial oppression. “Come then,” the document concluded in
grand style, “ye generous citizens, range yourselves under the
standard of general liberty, against which all the force and arti-
fices of tyranny will never be able to prevail.”

The Americans must not come as foreign invaders. Carefully
considered reports from the north indicated that, while active rebels
were too few for organized resistance, only the starting point and
nucleus of a friendly army was needed to turn the balance. The
French noblesse, always holding to the established government, had
dwindled in wealth and power. The habitants, to be sure, were in-
conveniently prosperous, but had nevertheless a grudge or two
against the regime, and had, as the Governor put it, “imbibed too
much of the American spirit of Licentiousness and Independence.”
It was only in this delicate matter of diplomacy that the Comman-
der-in-chief lacked confidence in Arnold, and, with strong emphasis
on “prudence, policy and a true Christian spirit,” he cautioned him
in detail upon it. Friendly relations were also cultivated with the
Indians, although Washington was fearful of enlisting the services
of such allies. Chief Swashan of the St. Francis tribe, with a retinue
of four grisly warriors, had come from his village, north of Quebec,
to Cambridge, and was received with attention and interest. Braves
of the Penobscot and Norridgwock tribes, squatting in all their
shaggy disarray, expounded with ceremony the mysteries of the
trail.

DARK EAGLE DESCENDS ON CANADA 51

On the fifth of September the musketeers, seven hundred and
eighty-six of them, and the three companies of riflemen were ordered
to parade upon the common, where ammunition, tents and equip-
ment were to be issued. There were inevitable delays, however, in
the quartermaster’s department. The riflemen were the first to go,
on the march to Newburyport, the point of embarkation. The New
Englanders refused to leave without the additional provision of a
month’s pay, and it was not until the thirteenth that the main body
started. That day, the countersign at Cambridge was “Quebec,”
and their comrades of the siege of Boston gathered by the elms that
arched the road, to see the long column flow proudly past them to
the stirring clamor of fifes and drums. Arnold lingered at head-
quarters until the morning of the fifteenth. Then the tall Virginian
bade him farewell. Amid handshakes and good wishes, he and his
little staff took their departure, and by hard riding joined the
army at Newburyport that night.

11. The Kennebec and the Chaudiere.

At Newburyport Colonel Arnold, restored to fame and good
repute, envied as one of Fortune’s favored, was entertained in state
by the great men of the town. The parting was delayed by a head
wind, and the time passed in sermons and prayers and a grand
review before the commander and a gay throng from the country
round about. At last the wind blew fairly from the north, the scout
ships reported all clear of British cruisers, and, on the morning of
the seventeenth, amid tears and cheers, a flutter of farewell from
the shore and music and crackling banners in the fleet, the little
squadron of eleven sail stood out for the open sea, Arnold’s flagship,
the topsail schooner Broad Bay, at the head of the line. The voyage
was a rough one, and the “dirty coasters and fishing boats,” as a
soldier summed them up, pounded their way through heavy seas,
the while the poor heroes within, well fed by the kindly folk of
Newburyport, suffered ingloriously. On the twentieth, through fog

BENEDICT ARNOLD

and rain, the ships crept into the mouth of the Kennebec and
anchored for the night. A local dignitary, the Rev. Ezekiel Emerson,
boarded the flagship, assembled the fire-eater and his officers in the
dim cabin and put forth his powers in an invocation to the Deity
for their wisdom and guidance, for their strengthening in the face
of hardships and perils, for the confounding of their enemies and
for the general victory of Christ over Satan in this righteous under-
taking, a supplication which, according to tradition, was timed at
an hour and three-quarters.

For two days the fleet worked its way up the windings of the
river, to the settlement at Gardinerstown. Here, on a hill above
them, stood the house of Major Reuben Colburn, an energetic offi-
cer who had been cooperating with Arnold from the start. At his
shipyard, in a flat meadow by the water’s edge, he had built two
hundred bateaux in the short space of eighteen days. These were
to carry the expedition on the shoal waters northward. In these
light craft, built for six or seven men each, with baggage, and each
equipped with four oars, two paddles and two poles, Arnold found
his first disappointment. They were built of green timber, heavy,
but thin and unequal to the hard usage in store for them. Many,
too, were under size, but their faults could be laid only to the haste
with which matters had been pushed, and Arnold ordered twenty
more constructed with all speed.

In the meantime he examined further maps and information and
listened to solemn Indian guides. Two scouts, sent north before
the expedition had been definitely determined upon, now made their
report. It was an ominous one. On the Dead River they had come
upon an Indian camp, and Natanis, the chief, had declared that he
was engaged by Governor Carleton to watch the route, that north-
ward on the Chaudiere there were spies and soldiers for the same
purpose, and that, if they passed farther it would be his duty to
report his suspicions of them. If Carleton, therefore, did not actually
know of the coming invasion, he would be almost certain to learn
of it before its arrival. Arnold always refused to acknowledge bad

DARK EAGLE DESCENDS ON CANADA 53

news. Natanis is, he informed Washington, “a noted villain, and
very little credit, I am told, is to be given to his information.” Out-
wardly, at least, he was fated to alter the opinion.

The army pushed on in bateaux and the ships of lighter draught
to Fort Western, six miles up the river, where Augusta now stands,
their first portage, around half a mile of rapids. Here the old log
fort, its guns long since dismounted, lodged some of the men; the
tiny village opened its doors to the rest. Headquarters were at
Squire Howard’s, and this worthy gentleman invited the whole
army and all the good Whigs for miles around to a frolic and bar-
becue in honor of the occasion. Tradition relates that three large
bears were roasted for the company, who sat at long tables, gorging
themselves merrily with meat and corn and cakes and rum and cider
in the true frontier style. The carving of the three bears, it is said,
was accorded amid uproarious applause to Dr. Isaac Senter, a stately
young man of twenty-two, and his assistants, as those best ac-
quainted with anatomy. Over the din of voices and the martial
airs discoursed by the drummers and fifers, toasts were bawled
out, drunk, and cheered to the echo. Thus Arnold’s muster of
lusty youths, on the brink of privation and death, laughed and
sang till sundown closed the day. Legend, which has always a
partiality toward affairs of the heart, and Aaron Burr, who was
of a similar turn of mind, have given us a story of this young
gentleman’s love for a pretty young squaw with a dash of French
in her veins, Jacatagua, who found her sweetheart so acceptable
to her tastes that she followed him into Canada, and later, despite
the fact that he once passed her over to a British officer whom
he met at an outpost, came to New York to be near him.
There, we are told, at the time of his final fall and disgrace, she
hurled herself into the sea, a hapless mistress and mother. In these
carefree days, however, they went hunting together, bringing much
of the game for Squire Howard’s barbecue. If the Colonel, con-
spicuous in the red coat of the Governor’s Guards, which he still
wore for want of other uniform, was present at the feasting, it was

54 BENEDICT ARNOLD

no doubt with a stern rigor of countenance befitting his responsi-
bilities.

He had already dispatched two small parties of riflemen as scouts,
one to explore the Dead River and the other to push on to Lake
Megantic, at the head of the Chaudiere. Reporting to Washington in
his regular tone of cheerful confidence, Arnold reorganized his
men for the advance into the deepening wilderness, and ordered
them forward. First to go, the cutting edge of his long column, were
the riflemen, Morgan in command. They moved out on Monday, the
twenty-fifth of September, with orders to reach as quickly as they
might the Great Carrying Place between the Kennebec and the
Dead Rivers, and there to cut out a road across it. On the next day
the second division, three companies under Lieutenant-Colonel
Greene, followed. A day later four more companies started and,
finally, the rear, three companies under Lieutenant-Colonel Enos.
With all arrangements completed and every man assigned his place
in the line, Arnold set out, on Friday. Swiftly paddled by Indian
scouts, his canoe passed the freighted bateaux in review to the head
of the line.

The riflemen reached the Carrying Place, seventy miles upstream,
in twelve days, and with swinging axes began to tear a road through
the forest, urged on by the deep voice of Morgan. He watched
over his “boys” with sharp eyes of affection and command, this
tall leader, as he tramped along the trail. He wore the leggins and
breechclout of the Indians, held to his body by the broad belt from
which his weapons hung, and his hips and thighs, thus left bare,
were scraped red by the underbrush. In the teeth of much grum-
bling and with indifferent success, he was seeking to enforce rules
which many a Revolutionary officer had abandoned in despair: to
make the lads save their ammunition instead of blazing away at
any mark that might catch their fancy, to keep them from strag-
gling, and in some sort of order on the march. His style of enforce-
ment was typical of the frontier. Once, sure that he had discovered
the man who had fired a shot without orders, he whirled up a

DARK EAGLE DESCENDS ON CANADA 55

club over the culprit’s head and swore to beat him to the ground
if he denied his guilt. At this, as it happened, Captain Matthew
Smith strode in, scowling and swinging a club of his own, threat-
ening as much for Morgan. With his military discipline in the
first stages of a riot, the Virginian wisely receded. In a week’s work,
a passage was hacked through to the Dead River.

In the meantime, the main body was fighting the current in its
heavily laden craft. Arnold had no base of supplies on the march,
and the country could no longer provide him. Everything had to be
carried in the bateaux: food for forty-three days, arms and ammuni-
tion, shovels and axes, tents, blankets, medical stores, all the im-
pedimenta of an army, and the boats were already weakening under
the strain. “Could we have come within reach of the villains who
constructed these crazy things,” one of the fagged oarsmen de-
clared to his journal, “they would have fully experienced the effects
of our vengeance.” The villains being absent, however, the energy
of the men was bravely given to the advance. Often they had to
wade in the deep, swift water, forcing the leaking tubs along.
There was tremendous labor at the portages.

At first, however, the weather was warm and clear, their ample
provisions were varied with fish and game killed by the way, and
the labor was lightened by cheering and laughing and coarse, loud-
voiced pleasantries. In this spirit they passed the first portage,
Ticonic Falls, a half mile of ledges and rapids. As each boat
touched the bank below, its crew leaped into the water and carried
the cargo ashore, after which the heavy craft itself was lifted on
handspikes and the march begun. Still more tedious was the long
carry past the “Five Mile Ripples.” The days were growing colder,
and time and supplies were lost in the persistent leaking of the
bateaux. On the trail around Skowhegan Falls, the tired men slept
in frozen clothes, and rose again to face bravely the ever swifter
and shallower current, pouring down from the north.

At “Widow Warren’s” the toiling column had reached the last
settlement. Here the virgin wilderness began. Here the huts of a

56 BENEDICT ARNOLD

Norridgwock village had once lain in the forest shadows under a
veil of smoke and savage odors. Father Rasle, a French missioner,
had presided at the place, but the whole had been wiped out by a
band of soldiers from Massachusetts half a century before, and only
the stone cross, beside which the priest had died with the remnant
of his converts fighting around him, and the ruins of an altar
remained. Strange legends were told of the place, of how the In-
dians had been inflamed by the Babylonish rites to bloody raids at
the southward, of the sordid murder of the old priest’s ally, Mogg
Megone, by his white wife, and of how Ruth Bonython, the rene-
gade’s daughter, had died wailing daftly among the bones of the
massacred village.

But here, too, was a long carry, where the river roared down a
mile of rapids, broken by three white foaming cataracts. Arnold
was here a week, as the men, wet and grimy, struggled under
their burdens up the trail, stumbling over slippery roots and moss,
officer and private working alike, as the wind in the pines above
them whispered the warning of a northern winter near at hand.
The line of boats was launched again and crept forward, mile after
mile, till the river became a shallow highland stream, where the
whole detachment, waist deep in the swinging, plunging current,
dragged the bateaux forward until, at last, they came to the Great
Carrying Place. The fourth division arrived on the eleventh of
October, with the head of the line twelve miles in advance, sliding
their boats into the still waters of the Dead River.

Two blockhouses, built on the Carry, were soon garrisoned with
the sick. By failing health and desertion, Arnold’s force had
dwindled more than a hundred men. Stores had been damaged or
lost on the way, and the scouting parties had come in, terribly wasted
by hunger and fatigue, with an ominous story of hardships and
perils. Through bleak and threatening weather his soldiers still
pushed on in their strange battle with the forest, in good spirits
still, with boisterous jokes and indelicate similes for every mis-
fortune.

DARK EAGLE DESCENDS ON CANADA 57

“The rain had rendered the earth a complete bog,” George
Morison, a rifleman of Hendricks’ company wrote in his journal,
“inasmuch that we were often half leg deep in mud, stumbling
over fallen logs, one leg sinking deeper in the mire than the other,
then down goes a boat and the carriers with it, a hearty laugh pre-
vails. The irritated carriers at length get to their feet with their
boat, plastered with mud from neck to heel, their comrades taunt-
ingly asking them how they liked their washing and lodging; per-
haps in a few paces farther, down they go, the laugh reverts upon
them.”

South of the army, as it moved northwestward on the windings
of the Dead River, towered Mount Bigelow, named for the capable
Major of Greene’s battalion, and far before them across a dreary
tangle of forest rose the Height of Land which they must climb and
descend to reach the Chaudiere. By the twentieth, the last of the
detachment had passed the Carry.

Arnold now sent two Indians ahead of him with letters to
friends in Quebec, from whom he hoped for information, and to
whom he enclosed letters to be forwarded to Schuyler. The papers,
however, were to find their way into the hands of Lieutenant-
Governor Hector Cramahe, commanding at Quebec while Carle-
ton directed the defense of Montreal. He had at least, after the
fashion of military correspondence, exaggerated his figures. “I am
now on the march for Quebec with about 2000 men,” he had begun,
“where I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you soon.” Cramahe
was duly impressed. To Washington, the adventurer wrote with
assurance, praising the spirit of his “amphibians,” slow though their
progress had been, yet mentioning now the possibility of retreat.

On the smooth, broad surface of the Dead River, black and
deep, the men drew their boats against a swift current by pulling
at the bushes that overhung the shore. Over tedious portages
they fought their way, and up the devious, confusing windings
of the river. Torrents of rain swept over them, and a sudden
flood took toll of their ever diminishing supplies. The rations of

58 BENEDICT ARNOLD

flour and pork, once freely given, were doled out with increasing
care. Arnold was finding the trail not only more difficult but
longer than had been supposed.

Then, where rapids broke the tortuous, strengthening flow of
the river, seven bateaux with provisions were capsized and lost.
There was a halt, and Arnold, at the head of the line, called a
council of such officers as he could gather. If they were to retreat,
they must retreat now, for the food would last but a few more
days. Arnold called for advance, and the grimy veterans around.
him agreed. Men were concealing pain and weakness lest they be
sent to the rear. Eager for glory, fearful of defeat, the courageous
little army was playing a grim game of chance.

Half famished, the men pushed on, abandoned their boats at last,
and began the ascent of the Height of Land. “The Terrible Carry,”
they called it. Over ground broken by rocks and gorges and huge
tangles of dead wood left by the forest storms, through light flurries
of snow, they ran a slow race. From man to man, word was passed
of the desertion of Enos and the rear guard.

Enos, at forty-five, was the oldest man in the army, and probably
not an admirer of his Colonel. As the presence of Arnold had
roused the courage of his men, so the wavering prudence of Enos
banished it from the fourth division, to whom the greater part of
the provisions had been intrusted. It returned, with all its baggage
save two small barrels of flour, ingloriously to Cambridge. Then
Arnold led the vanguard in a dash for the French settlements, the
last hope to save his army.

Noting the perils of the course for those who followed, the
Colonel and a small advance party fought their way ahead. He in a
birch canoe and their baggage lashed in four bateaux, they em-
barked on the foaming Chaudiere, and were whirled down it,
dodging the rocks that broke its steep flow, hazarding the worst
for speed. Hurled suddenly into the rapids, two boats crushed
beyond repair, they found that the wreck had saved them from
riding to certain death over a cataract just below. On the next

DARK EAGLE DESCENDS ON CANADA 59

day, October the twenty-ninth, Arnold’s canoe was ripped to frag-
ments on a rock, and again he narrowly escaped with his life in
the torrent. But he traveled forty miles that day, as fiercely resolute
and tireless as the wild river. On the evening of the thirtieth he came
to the first setdement, a few huts and wigwams, where the River La
Famine flows into the Chaudiere.

Behind him his weary heroes moved over the Height of Land
and down into Canada, where the sun warmed and refreshed them
as they rested for a space in a valley of broad meadows. Their
tents and camp equipment had been abandoned, much of their
gunpowder damaged and thrown away. They had only their arms
and provisions that must be measured by the ounce to last a few
days. And still there lay a hundred miles between them and what-
ever destiny Quebec might hold in store. Near sundown a messenger
came in with a letter from the Colonel: he had reached the settle-
ments; Carleton’s little guard of regulars had been removed, and
the peasants would welcome them as friends; Quebec could easily
be taken from its meager garrison; the crown had already suf-
fered defeat at St. Johns; and provisions would soon be on their way
to the rear. The news flared like a burst of sudden laughter through
the crowd of men in the long grass by the river, and the ragged,
haggard fellows rose and cheered. Their officers harangued them,
fired their failing bodies with the passion of victory near at hand.

Here flour and a little meat were divided among the hungry
men, and many, in their new confidence, devoured all at once. The
strongest, used to full eating, were suffering the most. Burr, whom
his friends had thought unfit for hardships, bore them well, as did
the two respectable soldiers’ wives who shared their husbands’ priva-
tions. From the meadows, the army advanced in three parts through
the tangle of swamp and stream that lay between them and the
Chaudiere. Four companies followed the river, to be caught in a
trap of which Arnold had warned them, wandering for days in
the morass, wading from one hillock to another, waist or shoulder
deep in the black bog water. Morgan also followed the river, his

6 o

BENEDICT ARNOLD

course made easier by the boats which his men had laboriously
carried over the ridge. And five companies took a safer route by
high ground. Slowly they straggled down by the Chaudiere, the
roar of the rapids beside them, the dense, unbroken forest still
enclosing them.

“Our greatest luxuries,” the irrepressible Dr. Senter’s journal
notes for November first, “now consisted in a little water, stiffened
with flour, in imitation of shoemaker’s paste, which was christened
with the name of Lillipu.”

“This day,” wrote Morison on the second, “I roasted my shot
pouch and eat it.”

With what strength they could get from leather or roots the
men stumbled onward, supported by their guns, too feeble to speak.
Here and there, along the line, soldiers fell and were passed by.

But it was on November first that Arnold’s relief, sturdy Cana-
dian peasants, driving their cattle before them, came upon the head
of the col umn , and gazed in wonderment as these lean men, like
ghosts, uttering hollow shouts of joy, gathered to eat the warm,
raw flesh. The glad cry, “Provisions in sight!” ran back along the
trail and cheered the stragglers on. Arnold had saved his army.
Some wept, some fell fainting as the terrible strain was lifted, some
of the gaunt, bearded demons hurled themselves upon the cattle
with their knives. Some died from the sudden orgy of blood and
meat, and many were sick. Jack Henry, who had reached the first
house on his seventeenth birthday, fell ill soon after. He sat in
dizzy misery by the roadside, the reorganized companies march-
ing past him. Shaeffer, his friend, a half-blind boy who had carried
his drum safely through all the perils, was hammering out a rhythm
for their feet and hearts. Arnold rode by on horseback. He knew
the young rifleman by name, and asked him how he did, and
when Henry replied that he could march no farther, dismounted,
gave his rifle to a passing soldier who was without one, and ran
down to the river, where his shouts soon brought a smiling habi-
tant in his canoe. Putting two dollars in Henry’s pocket, Arnold

DARK EAGLE DESCENDS ON CANADA 61

mounted again and left him in the care of the kindly farmer. He
was nursed back to health in a comfortable household, and sent
with best wishes on his way, his offer of the two dollars quiedy
refused. The American horror of popery, from which Washington
had feared trouble, was by such simple friendliness allayed. The
good people of the Chaudiere setdements, who might have de-
stroyed the starving invaders by the mere denial of food, received
them with hospitable good will, pitying their plight, awed by their
heroic adventure, and piously grateful for the hard money with
which Arnold paid them for supplies. They were a contented folk,
with a mild, impersonal interest in politics and wars. The Canadian
who took up arms for crown or colonies was generally a shiftless
fellow and a poor soldier.

From a short halt to refresh and reorganize his command, now
less than seven hundred men, Arnold hastened northward on a
good road lined by wayside shrines and little thatched white cot-
tages from which families emerged wide-eyed to see “les bons Bos -
tonnais” go by. Schuyler, seized by a sudden illness, had resigned,
and to the successor, Brigadier-General Richard Montgomery, Ar-
nold wrote, telling of his march. Quebec, he had heard, had been
recently reinforced from the sea. “However,” he added, “I propose
crossing the St. Lawrence as soon as possible; and if no opportunity
offers of attacking Quebec with success, shall endeavor to join your
army at Montreal.” He realized that his plans must shape them-
selves to current circumstances as he might find them.

Besides Montgomery and the British commanders, the fire-eater
had also the Indians of the region to consider, and he handled the
matter with tact. Some eighty of them, who had been lurking in
the neighborhood for some time, presented themselves on the fourth
of November, their dark bodies rattling ceremoniously with beads
and bracelets, their scalp locks appropriately befeathered. Among
them stood sly old Natanis, who, as he confessed, had accompanied
the men on the greater part of their march without their knowing
it. He now abruptly introduced himself and shook hands with

6 2

BENEDICT ARNOLD

everyone, “in the manner of old acquaintance.” They asked why he
had not shown them friendliness before, to which, with great
perspicacity, he replied, “You would have killed me.”

Natanis had evidently come to the conclusion that this was the
w innin g side, for he was all cordiality. The white men and the
savages now settled themselves for a powwow, and the pipes were
lighted with unction. A sachem strode to the center of the ring and
addressed the “Dark Eagle.” And the burden of his oration was to
demand why the “Dark Eagle” had brought soldiers into the land
of the French and the Abenakis. When this was completed, the
Colonel entered the circle, and replied to his “Friends and Breth-
ren” with an ingenious explanation of the whole matter.

“The King’s army at Boston,” his little history concluded, “came
out into the fields and houses and killed a great many women and
children, while they were peaceably at work. The Bostonians sent to
their brethren in the country, and they came in unto their relief,
and in six days raised an army of fifty thousand men and drove the
King’s troops on board their ships, and killed and wounded fifteen
hundred of their men. Since that they durst not come out of Boston.
Now we hear that the French and Indians in Canada have sent to
us, that the King’s troops oppress them and make them pay a great
price for their rum, etc., and press them to take up arms against the
Bostonians, their brethren, who have done them no hurt. By the
desire of the French and Indians, our brethren, we have come to
their assistance with an intent to drive out the King’s soldiers;
when drove off we will return to our own country and leave this
to the peaceable enjoyment of its proper inhabitants. Now if the
Indians, our brethren, will join us, we will be very much obliged to
them, and will give them one Portuguese per month, two dollars
bounty, and find them their provisions, and their liberty to choose
their own officers.”

Natanis and about forty dusky children of the forest forthwith
accepted the offer, and joined the march of the Sons of Liberty.

Close upon this success, however, came the news that another of

DARK EAGLE DESCENDS ON CANADA 63

Arnold’s messengers had been captured, and that the British were
forcing the habitants into their sendee to defend the city. The
column was urged forward with all speed, through bleak and snowy
weather, and though many were still unable to eat with relish, hot
beef and potatoes were waiting at twelve-mile halts. Stealing warily
through a damp, snow-filled wind, a little after midnight on the
morning of the eighth, the advance guard came to the high bluff
of Point Levi, over the St. Lawrence. And the sun rose as they
gazed out across the broad river and showed them, sprawled silently
beneath its crown of walls and roofs and spires, Quebec, the great
gray rock that was Canada.

111. Arnold Moves Cautiously.

Triangle-shaped, on the point where the River St. Charles joins
the St. Lawrence, the fortress of Quebec glowered at the invaders
on the southern shore from its gigantic bulk of stone. On the east,
where the point of the triangle faced the sea, behind a tangle of
masts and rigging, lay the Lower Town, a close mass of buildings
by the water’s edge, the rocky bluffs towering steeply behind it. And
the cliffs stretched out along the St. Lawrence to where Cape
Diamond rose, its gray majesty brightened by the glittering quartz
crystals that had given it its name. Stone batteries and log palisades
surmounted it. Frontenac’s old citadel stood out clearly on the
heights, and the palace of the Bishop, and behind these, the skyline
was broken by the stately tower of the cathedral, and a scattering
of pious spires raised in appeal to Heaven from New France. West-
ward from Cape Diamond, the bluffs of the Heights of Abraham
lined the river, and to protect the Upper Town from attack by
land, the rear of the triangle had been erected, the line of stone
bastions, thirty feet high from whose protection Montcalm had
sallied to battle with Wolfe upon the plains, sixteen years before.

Now Arnold brought the whole of his bedraggled army to Point
Levi with all speed, supervising the gathering and repair of arms

64 BENEDICT ARNOLD

in preparation for attack. Canoes and dugouts, every boat they
could find, had been seized. Scaling ladders had been made, and
details of men were practicing with them. Finally, the whole con-
tingent was paraded, and passed their commander in review. Five
hundred of them there were, with more than a hundred lodged in
the houses of the peasants, unfit for duty. The strong, athletic bodies
that had marched out of Cambridge in such brave array, were now
pitifully lean and wasted; their tattered, earth-stained garments
hanging loosely upon them, long hair and beards falling about their
sallow faces, many without shoes or hats. To solemn Abner Stock-
ing, his comrades brought to mind “those animals of New Spain
called ourang-outangs.” There was only a stubborn firmness in the
mouth and a proud glitter in the hollow eyes to promise victory.

On the river lay His Majesty’s frigate Lizard and sloop-of-war
Hunter, their guns commanding the broad water by day, and their
guard boats vigilantly patrolling it by night. Within the city affairs
were less stable. Yankee town meetings had been called, only to show
the strength of the liberal group and to multiply dissension. Rumor
exaggerated Arnold’s force to thrice its number, and men talked of
terms of capitulation. Cramahe alternately groaned and swore: he
saw days only between himself and the humiliation of surrender.
And then this trembling and wrangling, so favorable to Arnold,
was suddenly crushed through the indirect agency of his old Ticon-
deroga enemies, the Pittsfield partnership of Colonel James Easton
and Captain, now Major, John Brown. For these gentlemen, in
capturing the post at Sorel, up the river, drove from it Lieutenant-
Colonel Allen McLean, a tall Scot of furious loyalty, a dangerously
able soldier who had shown an organizing capacity in the enlist-
ment of a small crack regiment, the Royal Highland Emigrants.
Falling back, he had the good fortune to intercept Arnold’s letter
to Montgomery. He arrived at Quebec on the twelfth of November,
this strong-mouthed, kilted giant, burst in on a town meeting in the
chapel of the Bishop’s palace, flung an orator from the pulpit and
let it be known that there would be no talk of surrender. With

DARK EAGLE DESCENDS ON CANADA 65

fiery energy he hammered together an effective garrison and thun-
dered the populace into the belief that they were threatened by a
crew of banditti, out for blood and loot.

His coming was narrowly timed, for on the night of the thir-
teenth Arnold, long delayed by stormy weather, crossed the river.
At nine, with smooth water and a dark night, the skiffs and
canoes began to leave the shore where the pounding falls of the
Chaudiere drowned the splash and ripple of their paddles. Arnold
guided them at the head of the line. Near the farther shore, where
every caution was needed, they heard the steady beat of rowlocks,
and paused in breathless silence as the Hunter’s guard boat went by.
The barge passed in ignorance of the river’s mysteries, and the frail
craft beside it moved on, each touching gently the other shore,
gently emptied of its burden, warily vanishing again into the night.
At about four in the morning, a patrol boat, sighting a fire which
some of the men had built, drew in toward it, and Arnold, be-
lieving discovery inevitable, hailed, and ordered her in shore. The
British sailors answered the hail but ignored the command. Arnold
ordered his men to fire, and although the volley was echoed “with
screaming and dismal lamentations,” the barge vanished in the dark-
ness, and the maneuver had been discovered. Shortly after the
moon broke through the clouds and the crossing of the few who
remained had to be postponed. But by her silver light, five hundred
men climbed the steep defiles and formed their ranks upon the
Heights of Abraham.

Then was the last chance for a surprise. The companies ad-
vanced upon the town until they could hear the cries of the sentries
on the walls. And had Arnold hurled his tattered, shaggy spectres
against the city on that moonlit night he might well have carried
the barriers and crushed the defense so newly whipped together by
McLean. Too confident in the meticulous vigilance of the ships, the
garrison slept and the gates stood open. But Arnold, for all his love
of a bold hazard, did not strike. Expecting opposition on the shore,
he had not planned immediate attack. Time enough had passed for

BENEDICT ARNOLD

the guard boat on which they had fired to spread its warning.
Prudence outweighed the impulse to advance, and the sun rose
with the little army waiting on the plains.

On the fourteenth the Colonel wrote Montgomery of his ac-
complishment. “I am this minute informed by a gentleman of the
town,” he stated, after relating the events of the night, “that Colonel
McLean has determined to pay us a visit this morning with 600
men and some field pieces. We are prepared and anxious to see him.”
The anxiety was genuine enough. Wolfe had taken the city when the
French abandoned their defenses to meet him in the field, and
Arnold, with his small and inadequately equipped force, could
scarcely hope for better. But the British had learned the lesson too.
A small party did slip out from the walls, and succeeded in captur-
ing a rebel sentinel. Eager for action, the whole army advanced in
pursuit. Arnold, hoping to lure his foes to battle, so placed his men
that their entire strength was not evident. The garrison had fired
the suburbs of St. Roch, and a haze of smoke drifted over the scene.
The town, thrown into brief confusion by their advance, now re-
ceived them with loud huzzas, reinforced by a thundering discharge
of cannon. To this they replied with cheering and a few volleys of
musketry, and at last retired, much disgruntled by the day’s doings.
That night the rest of the army crossed the river.

Arnold’s next device was as ineffectual as the first. Accompanied
by a drummer, beating for a parley, young Matthias Ogden marched
up to the walls, bearing a white flag, and in his belt, a threatening
summons to surrender, in which Cramahe was promised security
of property if he capitulated, and “every severity practiced on such
occasions” if the town were carried by storm. But the only reply
was the reverberating explosion of a cannon, the shot striking near
by and showering the emissaries with dirt. Thinking a mistake had
been made, Ogden was sent twice again, and both attempts were
honored only with the same defiant commentary.

Arnold then invested the city, so disposing his force as to com-
mand the entrances by which supplies might be brought in, and to

DARK EAGLE DESCENDS ON CANADA 67

be readily reunited should a sortie be made. But McLean, his field
pieces not yet in order and his organization imperfect, had no in-
tention of attacking. Foraging parties were out from both sides
and sharp skirmishing took place. Even McLean had to confess
that his attempts to bring in firewood and provisions had been
blocked. But again Arnold lost an advantage by caution.

On the eighteenth of November he received what seemed re-
liable information that McLean was planning an attack with artil-
lery and about eight hundred men, in conjunction with which the
warships would land a force to take him in the rear. A council of
war held consultation, and decided, as the men had only five
rounds of ammunition, to fall back to Point aux Trembles, fifteen
miles up the river, and there await the coming of Montgomery,
who had already laid siege to Montreal. It was a needless move,
but there was wisdom behind it: for defeat might have had endless
ill consequences, while the ultimate victory, with Montgomery’s
army on the field, seemed certain.

So the ragged band marched westward to Point aux Trembles,
Aspen Point, with here and there, to mark their trail, a bloody
footprint on the frozen ground. And as they passed in their retreat,
a small ship sped by them on the river, unchallenged, and anchored
in the harbor of the Lower Town. Carleton had abandoned Mon-
treal, and landed now, to build new resistance in the momentous
fortress which they had left behind them.

CHAPTER V

THE STORMING OF QUEBEC
1. The Colonel and the Brigadier.

Moving up the lake passage, driving Carleton’s stubborn defense
before him, Montgomery had captured the forts at St. Johns and
Chambly, and, on the thirteenth of November, had entered Mon-
treal in triumph. A great part of his army, to be sure, had ended
their terms of enlistment and were determined to celebrate the
victory by a return to home and hearthside. Thus far, however, the
light of liberty had been spread, and the town welcomed its beams
with a promising show of satisfaction. Congress eagerly hoped that
Canadian deputies would soon be added to its number. But it was
obvious that the conquest had only begun while Carleton held
Quebec. He must be driven thence before a free Canadian govern-
ment could live in reality. And he must be driven thence before
the spring thaws would bring him reinforcements from the sea.

His advance, however, met inevitable delays. Every effort failed
to keep most of the men whose enlistments had expired from re-
turning. They, poor fellows, ill-clad and shivering on the threshold
of a northern winter, to all immediate appearances completely vic-
torious, very naturally thought of the warm fires and the families
for whom they had already done so much. The new general, like
Schuyler, was a New Yorker, and the New England troops did not
care to trust themselves to the breed. This intersectional distrust
smouldered long and ominously. David Wooster, sent into the nor-
thern department to cooperate, fanned it with complaints that
Montgomery, formerly a mere captain in the British service, should
be allowed to outrank him. But the new general was eminently

THE STORMING OF QUEBEC 69

fitted to command his raw sons of freedom, so impatient of disci-
pline and so ready to forget duty in a dust of bickerings and jealous-
ies. In him they encountered a quiet, soldierly leader, a modest
lover of liberty, who had made America his home and only sought
to give what he could in service to her welfare. His was not the
flaring courage by which Arnold inspired his men, but they fol-
lowed him no less readily into danger, not reasoning why. They
saw in him a devotion to duty and an air of dignity which made
him an embodiment of the cause for which they fought. In his
presence personal ambition and antagonisms did not flourish.

To the main body the fate of Arnold had long been a mystery.
Rumors and reports and at last dispatches from the Colonel had
told the story. Arnold had written in urgent request for clothing
and supplies, and had stated as his belief that two thousand men
would be needed for a safe and effective blockade. The distant Con-
gress at Philadelphia was giving little more than its best wishes to
the approaching crisis in Canada, and Montgomery had to shift
as best he might. Ships and military stores, including a quantity
of British uniforms which the shivering patriots donned without
scruple, had been taken at Montreal, and, leaving the city in the
care of Wooster and his New Englanders, he sailed down the freez-
ing river. With him, however, he brought only about three hundred
men, New York troops, mere boys most of them, and a thor-
oughly unruly crew. But he brought what was most needed for a
siege, a corps of artillery, under the command of John Lamb, a
turbulent, bad-tempered, ugly litde fighter, whose raw pugnacity
was to prove of value on more than one hotly contested field, and
who was to prove a loyal friend to Arnold.

On the second of December, the first cargo of supplies reached
the anxiously waiting camp at Point aux Trembles. At nine in the
evening, a topsail schooner, escorted by other sail, slid around the
bend in the river and dropped anchor by the point. Soon boats
were scraping the beach. Arnold’s corps was drawn up in orderly
parade. Lanterns swung in the darkness, torches flared redly on

70 BENEDICT ARNOLD

the snow, and the waiting ranks, for all the threatening sky and
bitter wind, felt warmed by the presence of the victorious General.
And then he came before them, with Arnold at his side, this tall
and slender soldier, gazing in frank admiration at the silent, atten-
tive faces of the men who had conquered the wilderness. They felt
a spontaneous loyalty to the new commander.

“He was well limbed,” young Henry wrote, “tall and handsome,
though his face was much pock-marked. His air and manner, desig-
nated the real soldier. He made us a short, but energetic and elegant
speech, the burthen of which, was an applause of our spirit in
passing the wilderness; a hope, our perseverance in that spirit would
continue; and a promise of warm clothing; the latter was a most
comfortable assurance. A few huzzas from our freezing bodies
were returned to this address of the gallant hero. Now new life was
infused into the whole of the corps.”

Arnold no doubt was determined to make a forceful impression
upon the General, and in this he succeeded. “Colonel Arnold’s corps
is an exceedingly fine one,” wrote Montgomery to Schuyler, “and
he himself is active, intelligent and enterprising — with a style of
discipline much superior to what I have been used to see in this
campaign.” In the face of Montgomery’s enthusiasm and respect-
ful courtesy, it was impossible for Arnold to stumble into a quarrel
with him, even though he was his superior officer. Arnold had al-
ready aroused a rankling hostility in one of his captains, who twice
refused a dangerous duty in the outspoken conviction that the
Colonel was trying to put him in the way of a British bullet. Arnold,
in short, still carried the contagion of suspicions and hard feeling,
and as the General had brought with him no less a personage than
Major John Brown, a substantial clique was soon in the making
against him. Had Montgomery been willing to listen to the queru-
lous outcries of factions, the disease might have spread till it crippled
the enterprise.

On the morning after the reinforcement the little army faced
Quebec again, their straw-stuffed moccasins slipping in the snow

THE STORMING OF QUEBEC 71

as they trudged along, a stem hope and a desperate resolution in
the hearts of all.

II. Behind the Walls.

Behind the walls of Quebec, Sir Guy Carleton presided with con-
structive vigilance over the city which, as Wolfe’s Quartermaster-
General and confidential adviser, he had helped to win for the em-
pire in 1759. The shrewd eyes that flanked his long and shapeless
nose missed nothing, and the firm mouth issued co mm ands that
were instinctively obeyed. Blunt, direct, unostentatious, he had
proved himself to the Canadians a strong but considerate ruler.
Toward the rebels his policy was always the same: to oppose active
treason with inflexible severity, to show to the conquered a kind-
ness that might win them from their delusions. By far the most
capable officer of the British service in America, his opposition to
the party in power, whose ministry had at best but a poor eye in
choosing its men, cut him off from recognition, and it was not
until the last months of the war, when nothing could be done, that
he was given the command he deserved. Montgomery, born at an
Irish country seat but a few miles from that in which Carleton was
reared, and a veteran also of the northern campaign of the Year of
Wonders, had resigned from the army in 1772 because of the neglect
and slights of the government, and returned to America to build
himself a home. Carleton was snubbed with a pointedness which,
even in time of war, would have driven many of his fellow officers
from the service. But he smothered his rage and worked on in his
own way.

He continued with McLean to repair the fortifications, in many
places ruinous or incomplete, with palisades and blockhouses, and
the windows of buildings in exposed places were walled up, leaving
only loopholes for musketry. A hundred and fifty cannon were
mounted before the return of the besiegers. By a judicious combin-
ing of rigor and diplomacy, the Governor silenced the enemies

BENEDICT ARNOLD

within, though hard experience had taught him that his was a cause
for which the French-Canadian felt no urge to do or die, and even
among the British in the town there had been such active disaffec-
tion that they could not be blindly relied on in a crisis. He had,
however, a nucleus of troops of undoubted steadiness and loyalty,
and these he so placed in stationing the garrison that their bold
front would have its effect upon the less stable element. Now many
of the men on whose friendship Arnold had relied were marching
their files of militia to and from the alarm posts. Of the town’s
five thousand souls, Carleton had, by December first, a force of
eighteen hundred men in arms. The most dependable unit was un-
der the orders of McLean, his second in command: a combination
of his two hundred and thirty Royal Emigrants, seventy Royal Fusi-
liers, a company of artillery and a company of marines from the
Lizard. To these he could add some five hundred French and some
three hundred British militia, over four hundred sailors, many of
whom were from the ships of war, and a hundred and twenty engi-
neers. Provisions had been accumulated for eighteen months, but
firewood, a very real necessity, was scarce.

Carleton knew precisely the character of the opposition: there
was hardly a time, indeed, when he was not fully acquainted with
their numbers, condition and even plans. His spies had generally
an easy access to the camp, for the Americans deemed it unwise
to alienate the country folk who brought them provisions by too
strict e xamin ation. And although he had double the number of
Montgomery’s men, and all the tremendous advantages of his posi-
tion, which winter cold and snow would make even more formi-
dable, he knew that he must meet all that an able soldier could bring
against him, and he took no chances.

As usual, the first move after the investment was a warning to
surrender, and, as usual, he received it with contempt. A peasant
woman was shown into his presence, diffidently announcing that
she was the bearer of a letter from Montgomery. Carleton called
for a drummer, and when the boy appeared, told him to take the

THE STORMING OF QUEBEC

tongs and put the letter in the fire. Then he ordered her to go back
to the rebel leader and tell him how his message had been re-
ceived. Another summons, more threatening in tone, was drummed
derisively out of town, and the patriots had to content themselves
with shooting their communications, tied to arrows, over the walls,
sowing at random a seed which now fell on frozen ground.

Montgomery then advanced his outposts into the suburbs of
St. Roch, close under the northwestern bastion, where his artillery-
men placed themselves with the professed purpose to “heave bums
into the city.” Behind, in the low meadows north of the town,
Arnold’s corps watched the work with satisfaction.

“Monday nth,” noted Dr. Senter. “Agreeable to prescription,
fifty-five more of the fire-pills were given to the Carletonians last
evening. Operated with manifest perturbation, as they were (as
usual) alarmed. Bells beating, dogs barking, etc. Their cannonade
still continued on the battery but to no advantage. Forty-five more
pills as a cathartic last night.”

The shells, however, were small, and wrought but little damage.
It was a more serious matter when Arnold’s riflemen advanced and
began picking off the sentries and gunners on the walls, and the
garrison soon found it worth their lives to show themselves to the
enemy.

The point, however, from which Carleton had the most to fear
was a piece of rising ground on the Heights of Abraham, some
seven hundred yards from the town, on which a windmill idly
swung its arms, and whence a battery might command the works.
And there, by painful night labor in the bitter cold, a battery grew
into being. It was difficult for the garrison to observe it at first, so
well it fitted into the wintry scene about them, for the battery was
built of ice. Nothing could have been made of the frozen earth.
But in a wooden framework, snow had been packed and drenched
from time to time with water until a firm wall had thus arisen to
protect the guns. On December fifteenth, with the cannon mounted
and ready in the menacing embrasures, Arnold and one of Mont-

BENEDICT ARNOLD

gomery’s aides, with a white flag and a drummer beating for par-
ley, marched boldly up to the city.

“We desire to speak with General Carleton,” Arnold replied to
the question of the sentinel. But the Governor’s only answer was
that he would hold no communication with traitors.

The ice redoubt proved only a threat. Its cannon could not hope
to break the wall, and it was soon ripped to pieces by Carleton’s
gunners. Lamb, just as a British ball splashed into his works, dis-
mounting a cannon and sprawling a few more of his men, heard
the voice of Montgomery beside him.

“This is warm work, sir.” Behind the General, he noted the
boyish figure of Aaron Burr, unmoved as another shot sent the ice
flying.

“Indeed it is,” he replied, “and certainly no place for you, sir.”

“Why so, Captain?”

“Because there are enough of us here to be killed without the
loss of you, which would be irreparable.”

Montgomery withdrew the men. His artillery, outweighed and
outnumbered, had been a failure from the first. It was obvious that
only an assault could win the town, and as ammunition and hard
money were almost gone, his Continental currency useless till the
conquest was complete, and smallpox already in the army, the
assault could not be delayed. The time was definitely limited by
the fact that the enlistments of most of Arnold’s men would expire
with the year, and the greater part of these were determined to
return. The General shared their longing. “I sigh for home like a
New Englander,” he wrote to the young wife at his manor on the
Hudson, from whom he had parted with the proud assurance, “You
shall not blush for your Montgomery.” The weight of responsibility
bore heavily upon him. He saw only this stubborn fortress between
the United Colonies and a triumphant reunion with the empire,
between himself and her.

Behind the walls of Quebec, Carleton and his officers recon-
structed the tales of spies and deserters, the successive desperate plans

THE STORMING OF QUEBEC

that were evolved in the besieging headquarters for their undoing,
at Holland House, out on plains, where a group of men gathered
in the evenings, sipped their wine by the roaring glow of the fire
and chatted earnestly. He heard, no doubt, of Montgomery’s proc-
lamation of the fifteenth. This had followed his refusal to receive
the summons. And this, too, was a summons, a summons to the
besiegers to storm the city.

“The Troops, flushed with continual Success, confident of the
Justice of their cause,” it announced, “and relying on that Provi-
dence which has uniformly protected them, will advance with
alacrity to attack the works incapable of being defended by the
wretched Garrison behind them.” This encouraging declaration was
reinforced with the prospect of the confiscation and division of
the property of those active in resistance. Knowing how perilous
the attempt must be, Montgomery had been sounding his men, and
found them ready to follow him. And when the council of war
finally decided for an escalade, the plan was one whose desperate
temerity alone promised it success.

The besiegers were arming themselves with hatchets and spears
for close fighting. Scaling ladders, with strong iron hooks to hold
them to the stones, had been made and the men were being drilled
in their use. An escaped prisoner brought in the news. The garrison
could hardly believe their enemies so foolhardy as to try the works.
They would have been more surprised to learn that the main at-
tack, screened by a series of feints along the western wall, was to be
made upon the gigantic cliff of Cape Diamond, where nature’s own
defenses had been strengthened but little. Carleton mounted more
cannon, ordered more men on night duty, and waited.

Days passed in cold succession, glaring white under the yellow
sun, leaden gray, or smothered in snow. Smallpox was spreading
in the rebel army, despite the efforts to quarantine it, and, no less
dangerous a disease, factions were cutting at its morale. Arnold was
meeting insults with a wrathful bitterness that threatened disaster.
The malcontents proposed to form a corps of their own, distinct

j6 BENEDICT ARNOLD

from his c omm and, to be led by Major Brown, and when Mont-
gomery refused to consider it, declared themselves unwilling to
storm the city, except on this condition. But the wrangle was as
shallow as loud, and Montgomery’s impersonal determination was
holding the men to their duty.

Montgomery, in a piece of soldierly bravado for the heartening
of his men, had declared that he would eat his Christmas dinner in
Quebec or in hell. Christmas passed in anxious waiting, and not
until the twenty-seventh did night bring the snow he needed to
obscure his approach, and the men were ordered to advance. Hardly
were they in motion, however, when the skies cleared and a retreat
was ordered. Then, with the fateful New Year’s Eve near at hand,
deserters slipped into the city and revealed the plan.

Promptly, the plan was changed. The disaffection in Arnold’s
corps had already argued a less hazardous scheme. There would be
a feint against Cape Diamond, and the main division would fall
upon the Lower Town. It would be impossible, were they success-
ful in this, to continue into the Upper Town, towering above, but
they would have possession of the warehouses and most of the
wealth of the city. It would hearten them, and give them materials
reasons for reenlisting, and the garrison, cut off from its harbor,
isolated on the lofty rock, might waver in its obstinacy.

In the meanwhile, the garrison, used to constant alarms, kept
the flares burning on the walls when the moon failed them, and
waited in restless vigilance, sometimes as many as a thousand men
in arms. Thursday, the twenty-eighth passed, clear and fine, and
Friday and Saturday like it. But on Saturday, the wind shifted and
blew from the sea, bringing with it, toward dusk, the long-awaited
snow. Deserters entered the city with the news that the rebels would
attack that night. Sunday, the thirty-first, passed in a bluster of snow.

At night the clouds cleared and the moon shone, for a while, and
then the snow swept down again, fine flakes, fiercely driven by the
wind, whirling over all a cold, impenetrable darkness. Behind the
walls the watchers could distinguish lights near them ranged across

THE STORMING OF QUEBEC

the P lains of Abraham. At about half after four in the morning,
Malcolm Fraser, Captain of the Main Guard, saw rocket signals
wavering up into the storm, near St. John’s Gate, in the western
wall. And suddenly, the regular “All’s well!” of the sentinels gave
way to the frantic cry, “Turn out! Turn out! Turn out!” echoing
down the narrow streets. Many of the garrison, seeing flashes in the
storm, were already at their places, the gunners with flaring matches
wai ting only for the sight of an enemy. There was a hurry of armed
men for their alarm posts. All the bells in the city were clanging
in discordant warning, and beneath their wild clamor the long roll
of the drums sounded a warlike summons. Within ten minutes the
walls were fully manned. Hard on the tocsin came the fierce reality.
With a heavy peal, the battery of St. Roch opened fire. Shells were
falling in the city, bullets splattering the ramparts, as the loyal
guns opened in reply.

Some rushed madly through the streets, some, like the good
nuns, smothered their fears in prayer while the walls about them
trembled with the thunder of battle. In the midst of all the con-
fusion, his presence welding the excited groups of men into an
effective unit, was Carleton. He was waiting for the main attack,
on which he must concentrate his force. Steady, alert, fearless, he
stood, unmoved by anything, until, on a sudden rush of breathless
messengers, there came the news that the rebels were in the Lower
Town. McLean was ordered down to judge the report. He was
soon back.

“By God, sir,” he cried, “it’s true!”

III. The Sault au Matelot.

At about four o’clock on that stormy night, Montgomery and
Arnold began their advance upon the strongest fortress on the con-
tinent, the houses of the little town huddled darkly in the snow
before the long, thin columns of the assault. In five divisions, a
thousand shaggy warriors moved with them from the camp, many

7 8 BENEDICT ARNOLD

still in rags, many wearing the red coats of the King, all united by
scraps of white paper fastened to their caps, bearing the motto,
“Liberty or Death.” A scant hundred men followed Captain Jacob
Brown, brother of the Major, whose intrigues had lost him the
honor of a part in the escalade, in the feint against Cape Diamond.
As they neared the place, they fired three rockets into the storm,
the signal for general attack, it being essential that the closing in
of the divisions should be as nearly simultaneous as possible. Soon
they were under the bastion that crowned the Cape, their muskets
rattling determinedly from a safe distance. Obscured by this feint,
Montgomery, at the head of his three hundred New Yorkers, ad-
vanced upon the barricades of the Lower Town. Protected in like
manner by a false attack on Palace Gate at the north of the city,
the main body, under Arnold, was to enter the Lower Town from
the opposite end, and the conquest would be completed when the
Colonel and the Brigadier joined forces in the middle. A third
feint was to be ma de at St. John’s Gate by Colonel James Living-
ston’s habitant regiment, “a few ragamuffin Canadians,” Montgom-
ery had called it.

At two o’clock, Arnold’s corps had been paraded in the sub-
urbs of St. Roch, six hundred men waiting in the darkness and
the drifting snow, their officers passing with lanterns along the
lines to make sure that all was in readiness for action. At four
they were advancing. The vanguard, about thirty men, was led
by the Colonel and Captain Oswald, behind these, Lamb and a
body of his artillery with a brass six-pounder mounted on a sledge,
and then Morgan, Natanis with the Abenakis, and the musketeers.
At last the rockets whirled up from Cape Diamond, and the men,
eager to be moving in the bitter cold, advanced at a run. At their
head, Arnold broke the path through the snow, a rifle swinging in
his hand. The men pushed steadily forward in single file, their
heads held low against the storm, clutching the locks of their guns
with handkerchiefs or the edges of their coats, to protect the
powder.

THE STORMING OF QUEBEC

Then came the bells, the drums and the shouting in the city,
vividly borne to them on the fierce wind. The battery in St. Roch,
behind them, broke into a roar, and at the Palace Gate, beside
them as they hurried on, a crackle of musketry and a blaze of
firebrands told of the attempt to burn it down. More faintly, muf-
fled by the storm, they heard the firing from Cape Diamond and
the Plains of Abraham. The column passed Palace Gate undiscov-
ered, but still it must cover a narrow third of a mile close under
the bluffs of the Upper Town, and here, soon after Arnold had
gone by, fire balls were hurled down from the walls, revealing the
dark ribbon of armed men as they hurried through the drifts. Then
the silence of their coming was suddenly ended in a crash of mus-
ketry from the blackness above them, now crowned with flashes
of red flame, shimmering weirdly through the storm. Wounded
men stumbled to the rear, those who had fallen lay smothered
in the drifting snow. The disabled must shift for themselves, the
hurrying column would not pause.

Unchecked by the flanking fire, the column followed the faint
trail of Arnold’s little vanguard, and plunged like a sword-thrust
into a narrow street, down which lay the first barricade of the
Lower Town, with the muzzles of two twelve-pound cannon star-
ing at them in threatening silence. Lamb’s men found it impossible
to drag their field-piece farther through the drifts, and came to
a halt. Word was sent ahead to Arnold that they could not ad-
vance, and the captain of the next company in line refused to pass
them, stating that his orders were to follow the artillery. At this,
Morgan appeared, scattering curses in his deep voice, the gunners
opened to right and left, and the advance began again.

Arnold’s plan had been to announce his presence by a well-
aimed discharge from the six-pounder, and, while Morgan made
a circuit on the frozen river to attack its rear, to charge the bat-
tery in front. Now the cannon had failed him, and the movement on
the ice seemed impractical. He sent word to Lamb to abandon
his piece and throw his men into the fight with their muskets.

80 BENEDICT ARNOLD

Then, calling on the riflemen to follow him, he led a rush against
the dim barrier before them. The men charged with a yell, and
were met by a tremendous explosion, as the grapeshot thundered
over their heads. Thrusting their rifles into the enemy loopholes,
they drove back the gunners, and the battery was silenced. Sud-
denly, a fire was opened upon them from the windows of the
houses in front. The bodies of the fallen made dark blots in the
shadowy drifts around the feet of the fighters. A glancing bullet
struck Arnold in the left leg below the knee, tearing its way down
along the bone to his ankle. For a while he stood, leaning on his
gun, the blood spreading beneath him on the snow, encouraging
the men about him, who, aiming by the flashes in the darkness,
were retur ning the fire from the houses. Thus, as the riflemen were
r unnin g forward with ladders to scale the barricade, Morgan found
him, already weak from bleeding, and plainly unequal to the work
before them. With Parson Spring supporting him on one side,
he ordered a rifleman to take the other, and Arnold was sent limp-
ing to the rear.

The soldiers called for Morgan to lead them, and after a hasty
consultation with Greene and a few others, it was agreed that he,
by right of his experience in active warfare, should have the com-
mand. The huge Virginian leapt for a ladder, and Arnold, as he
moved painfully away, must have heard his tremendous, “Now,
boys, follow me!” No sooner had the defenders caught sight of his
head, than a volley of musketry roared over the wall, and the heavy
body rolled with a thud from the ladder to the trampled snow.
In a moment, his short beard clipped through by a bullet, his face
deeply powder burned, he was up the ladder again and over the
wall, another lucky tumble on the cannon within saving him from
the ready British bayonets. Close after him, his boys swarmed over,
showering bullets before them and then charging with bayonet and
spear. Some thirty of the enemy threw down their arms. The
barrier had been taken, and frightened fugitives bore to Carleton
the news that the rebels were in the Lower Town.

THE STORMING OF QUEBEC 81

More slowly now the long file advanced through darkness
broken only by the deadly flashes overhead, uncertain of their
way among the walls that rose about them as they neared the
barrier. They stumbled against boats and anchors and maritime
litter scattered beneath the long, smooth drifts that moved like
waves before the icy wind. Then, close to them, in the narrow
path, the Colonel came limping painfully back, his arms over the
shoulders of the men who held him. In a tone of cheering confi-
dence, he urged them forward, promised a speedy success, glory and
wealth to the victors, and cursed the hireling cowards. Young
Henry, hunting for a short cut, was caught suddenly under the
chin by a ship’s hawser, and hurled down a sharp declivity; he
rejoined the line among the New Englanders and found them
much depressed by the Colonel’s going, heedless of his words of
encouragement. There were muttered comments as they pushed
forward, and a querulous “We are sold” was heard repeatedly
in the line.

Back along the narrow stretch toward Palace Gate Arnold passed
in his retreat, the muskets still crackling overhead, with now and
then the brief whine of a bullet near them in the wind. He grew
weaker, unable to stand upon the wounded leg, dragging it numbly
after him. At last he could walk no farther, and for more than a
mil e beyond the suburb of St. Roch to the General Hospital by
the St. Charles, they carried him. The din of batde was still borne
to them through the blustering of the storm, but there seemed an
ominous lull in the firing.

Ominous, indeed, it was. Not far beyond the captured barrier,
under the shadow of a tall cliff where the street turned again, and
again was blocked by a line of defense, Morgan and the head of
the column were waiting. It was here, under the precipice called
the “Sailor’s Leap,” the Sault au Matelot, that Montgomery had
promised to join them. Morgan, sensing the need for swift action,
was for an immediate attack upon the barricade while the enemy
was still in confusion from their first success. But he abandoned

BENEDICT ARNOLD

the impulse before the “hard reasoning,” as he called it, of his
officers: to wait, they said, was to obey the orders of the General,
who would soon be with them; the men were slow in coming to
the front, the prisoners almost outnumbered them; their guides had
been killed; prudence, in short, demanded that they wait. And
they waited, while Montgomery’s New Yorkers were retreating
ignobly from the battery whence a drunken sailor, swearing that
he would not run without one shot for the honor of the kingdom,
had hurled a charge of grapeshot among them. Montgomery, a
few still shapes behind him, lay in lonely glory in the snow, and
still they waited, in the narrow blackness under the Sauk au
Matelot, while Carleton wrapped his strength around them.

For Arnold the walls and chimneys of the Hospital rose darkly
through the whirling gray of dawn, with a gleam of yellow in the
window panes for welcome. Here a bevy of placid nuns had long
striven in good works and had remained at their posts when the
Americans came, a little fearful at first, but well pleased by the
courteous treatment they received. Henry, reared in the strict Cal-
vinist tradition, remembered it as “this holy place.” Now Dr. Senter
was its presiding spirit. This tall youth had begged in vain for
the command of a company in the assault, but he found himself
busy enough with the wounded. Into a room crowded with blood-
stained warriors stretched on the straw-littered floor or sitting
against the walls, some motionless and silent, some moaning in
their pain, some feeling their bandages and relating in hushed
voices how it happened, Arnold was carried. He was laid on a
pallet bed, the doctor and an assistant bending over him, breaking
away the crimson ice that covered the wounded leg, removing
stocking and shoe and cutting out the fragment of lead that had
done the damage.

While they were at work, Ogden came in with a flesh wound in
the shoulder, and stated his opinion that the attack would fail.
Others followed, to swell the rumors of disaster. It was not long
before an excited messenger stumbled in with the news of the death

THE STORMING OF QUEBEC 83

of Montgomery and the flight of his men. Only a miracle could
bring them victory now. The deadening realization of defeat came
over them, and from it they awoke to a sudden alarm for them-
selves, the birth of panic. The army was broken, leaderless, the
last remnant of its strength waiting for Carleton to trap and crush
it in the mazes of the Lower Town. Then they would fall upon
the helpless remnants on the plains.

Fear, dismay, despair, swept through the little mob of refugees
and unfortunates gathered at the Hospital. A rush of bullets and
bayonets was momendy expected, and the men had no heart
for fighting. Anxious faces lined the windows and watched from
the doors. There was heard a din of firing, nearer, from St. Roch.
The black-robed nuns fluttered to and fro, gasping piously in
French. But the men were soldiers still, and Arnold was their
commander. They came to him, begging that they might bear him
out of danger. He, however, drily rejected the offer, and ordered
that no man leave the place. He propped himself up on the bed,
shook the scabbard from his sword and laid its shining length
across the blood-soaked cloths beside him. He demanded that his
pistols, emptied in the fight at the barrier, be loaded, and then, with
a bright-barreled weapon ready in each hand, swore that the first
of the enemy to enter the room would die for it. He spoke his
orders in a bold, clear voice. Muskets were brought, and the sick
and wounded, the bright-eyed and firm-mouthed once more, seized
them eagerly. A desperate garrison lined the windows now, or sat
upon the bloody straw. And the staid edifice, which the strange
religion had raised to Mercy, became a fortress against the vic-
torious forces of the King.

CHAPTER VI

EXODUS

I. The Fire-eater Holds His Ground.

Through the gray of morning on that wan New Year’s Day, while
the firing had begun to rage anew at the Sault au Matelot, and
Arnold was lying among his guard of wounded men, a force of
the jubilant garrison had sallied from the walls and swept through
St. Roch with the cry, “Damn the dogs, well take them all!” A
few hastily mustered stragglers had met them with a wrathful
storm of cannon and musketry, and they retreated, dragging with
them, however, the five small mortars with which Lamb’s men had
scattered shells upon the city. Arnold’s order to move the guns to
a place of greater safety had been neglected, and the capture soured
even this meager taste of success. The firing in the Lower Town
died out at last. A leaden gloom held the shattered army in in-
activity. All that day the snow fell silently around them, hiding
the vestiges of batde under its white smoothness, leaving only the
wild memories of the night and the thought of missing comrades to
remind them of defeat.

Now the old bitterness came again, as the New England troops
railed against the New Yorkers for deserting the General, for
ruining all by their cowardice, and were cursed in turn for their
Yankee impudence. In the Hospital, where Arnold, weak and
in great pain, was penning concise accounts of the assault, calling
for immediate reinforcements, the wounded men in the straw
raised piteous arms above them, moaning, “Montgomery is dead.
Montgomery is dead.” And the good nuns, who had given them
their coverlets and torn their linen into bandages, echoed it as they
passed from room to room, “Poor Montgomery is dead.”

EXODUS

On the next day, Major Meigs, of Arnold’s corps, came into
the camp, a prisoner on parole, bringing them the first news of the
fate of his comrades. They had all been taken, those at least who
had survived a desperate battle in the narrow death trap by the
precipice. After that fatal delay of waiting, they had renewed the
fight, firing at the flashes around them, crying, “Quebec is ours!”
The riflemen had loudly dared the cowards to come from their
covert and try the rifles, now for sale at a low rate, to which the
wits of the garrison called back that they expected to have them
soon for nothing. But the flare of pugnacity had given way to
desperation as a wall of musket fire and bayonets had closed round
them with terrible effect. Five hundred men, sallying from Palace
Gate, had blocked their rear. Still had they held out to the last,
hoping that Montgomery would come. Late in the morning they
had laid down their arms. Morgan, whose gigantic voice had guided
them through the darkness and torturing confusion, who had
called in vain on the exhausted men to fight their way to liberty,
had been the last to surrender, his powder-blackened face streaked
with tears as he stood against a wall, holding back a crowd of angry
redcoats with his sword, crying, “Shoot if you will!” and “No
scoundrel of those cowards shall take it from my hand!” But Carle-
ton, according to his wise policy, which the British government
never learned to appreciate, treated his captives well, and allowed
Major Meigs to return on parole and bring in their baggage. Even
Arnold was touched with gratitude for the Governor’s kindness
to his men.

On that day Arnold wrote to Wooster in Montreal, giving the
details of his plight. Over a hundred men, whose enlistments had
expired, had already abandoned their dejected comrades and set
out for home. Ammuni tion, provisions, medicines and money were
very low. Not including the unreliable Canadian regiment, six
hundred men, many unfit for active duty, were besieging Carle-
ton’s garrison of three times their number. A sortie was antici-
pated, and the call for reinforcements was an urgent one.

BENEDICT ARNOLD

“I shall endeavor,” Arnold declared, “to continue the blockade
while there are any hopes of success. For God’s sake order as many
men down here as you can possibly spare, consistently with the
safety of Montreal, and all the mortars, howitzers and shells that
you can possibly bring. I hope you will stop every rascal who has
deserted from us and bring him back again.” He needed cash, he
needed food, he needed three thousand men at least to take the
city, he was in excessive pain from his wound and would be
pinned to his bed for two months or more. Wooster, himself in.
straits, received these complaints with placid concern, and set
himself industriously to do what he could.

Arnold sat on his bed in the Hospital, a portable writing desk
across his thighs, quill in hand, sallow of face and hard of eye,
the black hair hanging in disarray. The pangs of gout added to
the gnawing agony of the long wound in his leg. But this was
only half the torment: he had been defeated. Quebec must be won
in a few months or lost forever. He was commander of an army
and could do nothing. He plied the surgeons with questions and
made varying calculations of the weeks until he could stand on his
feet again. The pen scraped the paper with resolute impatience,
as the sensitive lips quivered with pain and the mortification of
inactivity. And one moment he would be in despair, and long
only to be quit of the wretched business, and then the fierce de-
termination would return.

“The command of the army,” he wrote on January sixth, “by
the death of my truly great and good friend, General Montgomery,
devolves upon me, a task I find too heavy under my present cir-
cumstances.” And then, in a sudden burst of the old, proud energy,
“I have no thoughts of abandoning this proud town until I first
enter it in triumph. My wound has been exceedingly painful but
is now easy, and the surgeons assure me will be well in eight weeks.
I know you will be anxious for me. That Providence which has
carried me through so many dangers is still my protection. I am
in the way of my duty and know no fear.”

EXODUS

In his suffering and sense of helplessness he resigned the com-
mand to his second in rank, Colonel Donald Campbell, a bluster-
ing, insinuating body, with a keen taste for everything in a soldier’s
life but the danger, thoroughly unpopular in the camp for having
been the man who ordered the retreat of the New Yorkers. Camp-
bell stood among the group in Arnold’s room in the Hospital and
made oath to a number of bloody intentions. But in the end he
found himself obliged to call a council of officers, which decided
unanimously that the invalid fighter should lead them. Arnold
was willing now to see another in the chief command. Perhaps
he r ealiz ed that the venture into Canada was doomed to failure.
He had already told Wooster that his presence was absolutely neces-
sary to restore the morale of the dispirited men. Wooster promised
reinforcements, but declared himself unable to come, and Arnold
wrote to Washington of his predicament, suggesting that General
Lee, “or some other experienced officer” be assigned to the com-
mand.

From their passive confidence that Quebec would fall, the pa-
triots were suddenly awakened by the news of defeat. Before the at-
tack took place, they had indignantly combated a rumor that
Montgomery had been killed in an unsuccessful escalade. Now they
had to announce the hopeless news, the narrowness of the failure
no whit lessening its desperate reality. It was still believed that only
the conquest of Canada would save them from a long and bloody
war, and Congress and the leaders turned to the task of throwing
new strength into the broken little army in the north.

“We now, my friend,” General Lee had blandly informed Robert
Morris, early in December, “sail triumphantly before the wind, the
reduction of Canada, for I suppose it is reduced, gives the Coup
de grace to the hellish junk. Montgomery and Arnold deserve
statues of gold, and I hope the Congress will erect ’em.” Washing-
ton, at the same time, was showing a high admiration for Arnold.
“The merit of this gentleman,” he wrote, “is certainly great, and I
heartily wish that fortune may distinguish him as one of her

88 BENEDICT ARNOLD

favorites. I am convinced that he will do everything that his pru-
dence and valor shall suggest to add to the success of our arms.
Nor did his reputation suffer by the losses of the fateful New Year’s
Eve, while his bold continuance of the siege seemed fresh proof of
his ability. His happy combination of courage, prudence and a re-
spect for appearances, won him the faithful admiration of many of
his men. “You will ever see him the intrepid hero,” wrote one of
them, “the unruffled Christian.”

In Congress, however, the seeds of distrust had already been
planted, and grew steadily, nurtured by the fire-eater’s implacable
foes. Montgomery had given the cause the glory of his sacrifice
and name, but Arnold was still a hot, uncertain reality. Yet he, if
any man, had earned advancement, and, on January tenth, on the
motion of Silas Deane, with whom he had kept in touch, but not
without argument and delay, he was appointed Brigadier-General.
Later, a ship of war was named the Montgomery, and a floating
battery, the Arnold. Hero worship, for the time being, rested there.

Hitherto, in a more pious than practical spirit. Congress had
left its Canadian adventure in the care of an all-seeing Providence,
whose favors had been duly rewarded with mention in the public
records and utterances. It now appeared, as Charles Lee was wont
to remark when the army was ordered to prayers, that Heaven
favored the strongest battalions, and they acted accordingly. “To
the rescue!” however, was the cry in London as well as in Phila-
delphia, and they knew that haste was essential. They had rested
in the confidence that the war for Liberty would gather momentum
among the Canadians themselves as soon as an army of patriots
had come among them. Now they found that a new and larger
army, with an effective organization built up behind it, must be
launched on the long march, must cross the snowy wastes and con-
quer the stubborn city before the royal transports came through. It
had been a romantic, strange campaign, so small were the contend-
ing armies, so great the empire for which they fought, its contrasts
of heroism and cowardice, of vigor and weakness, so strong, its

EXODUS

victories so narrowly gained, each little band seeking even to
bluster its enemies into a sense of defeat to turn the sagging bal-
ance. And now it was to be a long hard race of reinforcements to
the battle front.

Anxiously the two armies at Quebec watched the passing of the
precious days, some furiously cold, driving the sentries from their
posts, some with a presage of spring, filling the hollows in the snow
with glittering pools. The garrison, uncertain when their enemies
might be strengthened and try the walls again, mounted guard
with unabated vigilance, and prepared, whenever snow came with
the darkness, for the expected assault. But they were more confi-
dent now, the citizens passing their time merrily enough, with a
derisive song or two for “Arnold, ce fameux maquignon’,’ jockey
and brigand. The besiegers too were apprehensive of attack. Arnold
had retired his main body about a mile, where he placed them in
such a manner as to guard the roads and be ready to unite in re-
sistance to a sortie. This left the magazine in an exposed position,
but he did not move it to a place of safety, fearing that further
precaution might alarm the habitants who had aided and supplied
the army. He protected it, therefore, with the remnant of his can-
non. The advance guards were still stationed close to the city, and
around the exposed parts of the camp there rose ramparts of packed
and frozen snow, substantial enough to stop a musket ball.

That the Americans, with a scant seven hundred men, should
have held a garrison of almost two thousand imprisoned behind
its works reflects great credit on their commander, and was de-
clared a marvel by his fellow officers. But obviously, Carleton had
much to lose and little to gain by a sortie in force. Many of his
men had too little enthusiasm in the cause, many were too inex-
perienced in mili tary maneuvers to take the field. While he had
provision enough behind the walls to keep the populace contented,
it would have been folly to have risked all in an attack across the
snowy plains. It was only of firewood that he was dangerously in
want, and parties were sent out under guard to gather timbers and

BENEDICT ARNOLD

fence rails from the suburbs. Aware of the need, the Americans
kindled as many fires as they could among these sources of supply.
The icy days slipped by, broken by raids and skirmishing in the
neutral ground, and by the constant expectation of attack.

On the twenty-fourth more than two hundred of Wooster’s men
at last arrived in camp, and on the fourth of February twenty-five
New Englanders trudged in on snowshoes, the vanguard of the
reinforcements from home. A supply of hard money relieved one
worry of the jaded commander. Ordnance, however, was slow in
coming while four feet of snow still covered the ground on the
level stretches, and Arnold hoped to enforce his next attack with
an effective bombardment. He was busy with a scheme to lay a
boom across the St. Lawrence below the town, to delay relief from
the sea.

He was out of bed now, hobbling to the windows with the help
of a cane. By the end of February, he was making the rounds of
the camp, General Arnold, rousing a cheer as he rode by, proudly
saluted by his old comrades, broadly stared upon by the new re-
cruits. Major Brown, to be sure, was still chairman for a coterie of
disgrunded officers. The fire-eater’s method with these malcontents
was an unusual one. Instead of ignoring them in his orders and
keeping them in obscurity, he gave them dangerous and im-
portant duties to perform, opportunities, if they acted with spirit,
to win glory and promotion. In this they could read no other motive
than a desire to see them lose their lives in an encounter with the
enemy. Such an event would probably not have been a cause for
remorse to Arnold, but his design was more probably to assert his
authority over them, and, in the belief that they were all cowards,
give them the chance to disgrace themselves.

Brown had now a lofty opinion of his value as an officer,
founded on the fact that, by the sheerest bravado, he had argued
the entire British flotilla at Montreal . into a surrender. His objec-
tive was now a Colonel’s commission, supported by a verbal promise
of the immortal Montgomery. Arnold, scorning the fine points of

EXODUS

defamation which had been used against him, informed Congress
with the frankness and candor which belong to a high sense of
duty that both Brown and Easton were very commonly believed
to have plundered the baggage of some of the prisoners at Mont-
real. He pointed to the impropriety of a promotion until the doubts
in this matter were cleared, adding that, as he acted purely in the
public interest, he did not wish his part in the matter to be kept
secret from any one. Brown was outmatched. “Genl. Arnold and I,”
he wrote his wife with gloomy foreboding, “do not agree very well
— I expect another storm soon; suppose I must be a Uriah.”

Early in March, the first company of a regiment of Pennsyl-
vanians was cheered into camp. They were newly recruited troops
and uniformed, although their long march, hardly less terrible than
Arnold’s, had worn the cloth to tatters. Their dress was a cheap and
serviceable brown, the coats faced with buff and crossed on back
and chest by the broad white belts that supported cartridge box
and canteen. With knapsacks and blankets on their backs, hatchets
swinging at their sides, with shoes and leggins and mittens, much
the worse for wear, but with the long barrels of the firelocks
bristling overhead to give the note of confidence and power, they
were joyously welcomed at the post of danger. Company by com-
pany, the reinforcements marched in, until by April the besiegers
numbered almost twenty-five hundred men.

Blessings and trials, however, came in equal quantities. The
smallpox continued to spread, until as many as four hundred lay
stricken at one time and the burial parties were almost daily at
work. Finances dwindled again, both at Quebec and Montreal,
bringing the pinch of hunger, pillaging, and the hostility of the
Canadians. Arnold had assured Washington that he hoped “to rub
along” in this matter, but the last hazardous expedient of forcing
paper money on the people became a necessity, with Quebec as
defiant as ever.

“We labour under as many difficulties,” he wrote, “as the Israel-
ites did of old, obliged to make bricks without straw.” He again

BENEDICT ARNOLD

sent a s ntnm ons to the walls, with only the cold satisfaction of a
verbal instead of explosive rejection. His army still too weak to risk
an assault, he concentrated on the difficult work of raising batteries,
and began to prepare a small navy with which he might attack
the harbor when the weather permitted, for most of the warships’
guns had been remounted in the town.

Gradually, after the defeat at the Lower Town, the campaign
had been losing its character of a friendly reinforcement of the
Canadian liberals and becoming purely a military operation, a
desperate effort at armed conquest. The change condemned it to
failure. Inevitably, signs of enmity appeared among the Canadians.
And, suddenly, the peasants whose allegiance both sides had so
long endeavored to secure rose in arms under the banner of the
King. The scheme, with the priests behind it, the seigneurs at the
head of it, and a force of three hundred and fifty men, was to
capture the American post at Point Levi, across the river from
Quebec. The threatened detachment was hopelessly outnumbered
and its defeat would break the siege. For a few days, everything
hung in the balance. Arnold acted quickly. Strengthening Point
Levi, he hurled two hundred men against the enemy, surprised and
made prisoner their advance guard after a brief scuffle. The main
body scattered, and the revolt against revolt was ended. But the in-
cident was a sorry blow to the still lingering hope that the Canadians
would rally round the standard of Liberty. Arnold, a fighter to
the last, assured Washington in positive terms that the habitants
were still as friendly as ever. Nor had they turned bodily against
him, for many had aided in the defeat of the relief force. But he
was certainly ignoring the growing hostility of the leaders of these
simple folk, the clergy and the noblesse.

Arnold might glower at the silent, snow-laden fortress, and grind
his teeth in sullen fury, but the chances of its capture were all but
hopeless now, and melted daily, with the snow. And he knew it.
It was a thing which men might sense, which would rise in their
minds and overshadow them without ever finding an expression.

EXODUS

Keenest to sense it were these adventurers. Aaron Burr, after a
sharp quarrel with his General, had already left the camp. Charles
Lee had been assigned to the command in Canada, raising the hopes
of many, but had not considered it a likely investment, and had
been transferred to the southern department. Arnold himself left
Quebec when a superior officer arrived and he could do so with
honor. It was not a callous admission of defeat. The patriot arms
and his own career were too closely linked for this, while there
yet lingered a chance of victory. The immediate cause of his going
was the old proud intolerance of a superior officer, particularly
intolerable here, where the superior officer was General David
Wooster.

A temperate old Puritan, without tact or tactics, Wooster could
boast of thirty years of honorable service and no immediate ac-
complishment. He was old-fashioned and sometimes a little absurd,
“an old man, with an enormous periwig,” as one of Carleton’s
officers summed him up. Silas Deane had opposed his appointment
to the army, stating his repugnance, as he put it, “to sacrifice the
good of my country to the whim of an old man, or old woman
rather.” Washington had been almost as blunt. “I have no opinion
at all,” he had observed to Joseph Reed, with confidential irony,
“of W — r’s enterprising genius.” His blundering shortsightedness at
Montreal had brought confusion and discontent. Worst, perhaps,
of all his failings, was a pious refusal to consider the Canadian
priests as anything better than the arch-idolaters of Antichrist. He
lacked utterly that bold initiative the crisis demanded.

It was impossible that Arnold should long submit to the domina-
tion of the old General’s cautious incompetence. It was on the first
of April that Wooster arrived. With him, to the great joy of the
camp, he brought not only reinforcements, but heavy siege artil-
lery. If the British had been annoyed by the cheering in the Ameri-
can camp from time to time, announcing the coming of new
strength, the Americans had grown heartily tired of the regular
“All’s well!” from the ramparts. They were weary of inactivity.

BENEDICT ARNOLD

and here was at last a chance to raise an uproar and tumble a few of
Carleton’s walls around him. But Arnold was already in none too
agreeable a frame of mind from Wooster’s slowness and negligence
in supporting him from Montreal, and now it was evident that he
was not greatly respected and would have no very important part
in the operations. On the following day, to add a more acrid flavor,
his horse fell upon him, severely bruising the wounded leg. Leave
of absence was not begrudged him, and he promptly repaired to
Montreal and there assumed command.

“Had I been able to take an active part,” he wrote to Schuyler
on the twentieth, “I should by no means have left camp, but as
General Wooster did not think proper to consult me, I am con-
vinced I shall be more useful here. He confided that he felt very
dubious of Wooster’s ever taking the city, especially as he had
almost eight hundred men on the sick list, only seventeen hundred
on duty, and the terms of fifteen hundred had expired, about half
of whom, he thought, would reenlist. He had, however, no thought
of abandoning Canada. If Quebec held out, a campaign in the
field would follow, and might, he reflected, prove more successful.
Signs of his vigorous hand began to appear in the confusion at
Montreal.

“Arnold,” as Aaron Burr described him, “is a perfect madman
in the excitements of battle, and is ready for any deeds of valor; but
he has not a particle of moral courage. He is utterly unprincipled
and has no love of country or self-respect to guide him. He is not to
be trusted anywhere but under the eye of a superior.” But for the
last sentence, there is sufficient truth in this damning description to
excuse its coming from Aaron Burr. It was under the eye of a su-
perior that Arnold was least dependable. What every spirited officer
desired was a detached command, with the opportunity to show his
powers, and to this impatient fire-eater a detached command was
essential. As long as his country’s cause and his own were united he
had enough of self-respect and enough of honor to be worthy of
the trust.

EXODUS

II. The Last Man to Go.

In Montreal, the adventurer issued his orders from Wooster’s old
headquarters, a low stone edifice erected more than half a century
before and the residence of the English governors since the con-
quest, the chateau de Ramezay. In the cellar, Fleury Mesplet,
printer, was kept busy with the literature of Freedom’s cause, horta-
tory and explanatory pronouncements whose value was greatly lim-
ited by the fact that most of the good people of Canada were unable
to read. Patriot officers, in as great a variety of costumes as faces,
passed and repassed the sentry lounging at the door. For a while,
the fire-eater was too busy to quarrel. In his inability to find or
inspire trustworthiness in his immediate subordinates, especially in
matters financial, every problem of the army came under his per-
sonal control. The position of the city, the chief American base in
Canada and the midway point between Quebec and Ticonderoga,
made the task an important one.

It was here that he first came into intimate contact with the
Congress. He had already enemies and friends at Philadelphia, and
had felt the sting of the new government’s scrupulous distrust. Now
he was to learn the frailty of their support, for although they were
at last giving the best they had in a desperate race for Canada, he
soon realized the prodigal futility of the business. At the same time,
he came into personal relations with three distinguished members,
Benjamin Fr anklin , Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll of Carroll-
ton, c omm issioners sent by Congress to examine and direct the tan-
gled affairs behind the fighting lines.

Congress had reacted quickly and firmly to the news of the dis-
aster at Quebec. “We will never abandon you to the unrelenting
fury of your and our enemies,” the Canadians were promptly re-
assured; “two battalions have already received orders to march to
Canada.” In February it was resolved to send the committee of
three, to make known to the people of Canada the splendid inten-
tions of their deliverers, to show them the closeness of their interests,

BENEDICT ARNOLD

to quiet the disputes that had arisen between the troops and the
inhabitants, and to weed incompetency from the army where it
might appear. With them came John Carroll, later to become the
first Archbishop of Baltimore, ready with all his powers of per-
suasion to meet the hostility of the clergy of New France. And with
them came no less a personage than Frederick William, Baron de
Woedtke, Knight of Malta, Knight of the Order of Jerusalem, &c.,
&c., late of the Prussian army, Brigade Major to the King’s Own
Command, who, according to the tale which he recounted in melan-
/Anltr on A o Ar\\Ar orrpnt frt oil r>PrcAn c

1 1 __ Jl _ J _ A.L * 4-rv -rt 1 1 rs TT?1n

had been summarily dismissed from his honorable command when
obliged to bear to the warlike monarch news of the death of his
nephew. But America had welcomed him with many expressions
of sympathy and the title of Brigadier-General. And behind them,
money and provisions were advancing slowly into Canada, and a
legion of tall flintlocks on the shoulders of the tall young men
who had answered the call of their country and the lure to adven-
ture in the spring.

On the night of April twenty-ninth the honorable commission-
ers crossed the St. Lawrence to Montreal. The city, reaching out to
them a shimmer of lights across the dark water, welcomed their
arrival with a roar of artillery. On the wharf, in a blaze of lanterns,
with a file of soldiery for background, they are greeted by Arnold
in his scarlet dress, his officers about him, and the patriot citizens
of the town crowding forward to pay their compliments to the five
travelwom men: Franklin, Chase and the two Carrolls returning
compliments with weary dignity, and the bleary-faced Baron emit-
ting good-natured grunts from a heavy body completely swathed
in furs, to exalt the scene with a touch of the ridiculous. Thence
they are ushered into the stolid hall of the chateau de Ramezay,
with wine and toasts and shaking of hands and good wishes of
welcome, and candles throwing a confusion of shadow grotesques
upon the walls and ceiling. And then to another apartment, sud-
denly finding themselves among a great number of ladies, a rusde

EXODUS

of fine gowns, and light French accents rippling in excitement and
hospitality. Steaming cups are passed by the servants, and sipped
in a flurry of confidential chatter. His muscular frame all alert
formality, the tan now faded from his face and replaced by the
florid countenance which then distinguished the gentleman who
lived well, his hair lightly powdered, a different figure from the
roughly clad fighter at Quebec, the General finds himself a center
for bright attention, the long-nosed priest for reverent curiosity.
Franklin’s genial good humor no doubt rises to the occasion and
wins him a heart or two, while the worthy Baron is smiled at
for his awkward imitation of Parisian courtliness. The favored
guests pass in to supper, which is concluded with the singing of
die ladies, until, at last, the fatigued envoys are permitted to retire.

The commissioners went at once to their work, and did some-
thing to tighten the organization of the invading forces, but their
chief accomplishment was to reveal more clearly the utter hope-
lessness of the situation. The deft arguments of John Carroll could
not persuade the clergy to a union with the papist-hating colonies
of the south. The army was continually melting before disease and
short enlistments. Supplies and money were perpetually lacking,
and among the many debtors were the poor soldiers themselves,
grumbling for their pay. Such poverty led inevitably to plundering,
and so feeble was discipline that the officers did little to check it,
and Arnold, writing to Chase of the men who had looted the house
of a friendly Canadian, “They are suicides, and will be made an
example of,” must needs suggest in the same letter that seizure was
now the only recourse to supply the army.

Franklin, failing in health and utterly discouraged, determined
to return and report in person. On the tenth of May news came to
Montreal that John Thomas, who had succeeded to the command
in Canada and had reached Wooster’s lines at Quebec but a few
days before, was in disorderly retreat. The British, reinforced from
the sea, had sallied and carried the campaign into the field. On the
following day, Franklin and John Carroll departed. The two re-

BENEDICT ARNOLD

maining congressmen retired to St. Johns until the fate of the army
should be clear, but they were not idle. The vantage points of the
St. Lawrence were ordered fortified, row galleys built to hold the
river, and they threw their own funds into the bottomless purse of
the army of the north. Wooster, who had given more thought to a
choleric tiff with the Baron de Woedtke than to providing for a
retreat, was blamed for the disaster. Having already been put in a
very bad temper by the arrival of Thomas, he set an example of in-
subordination by threatening to leave the army, and accused the
co mm ission of improper interference.

The co mmi ssioners, however, had been vested with authority
to remove any officer whom their judgment might condemn, and
although they had expressly declared an intention not to interfere
with the mili tary situation, this power made them a storm center
for all manner of quarrels and appeals. The fire-eater had done
everything in his power to ingratiate himself with these important
individuals, and they were impressed, with interest if not enthusi-
asm. Chase, with the small, straight mouth and the cool, critical
eyes, had sounded him in a friendly interchange of letters, and
judged him without the powers of a truly great commander. But he
had starved and bled and struggled with disaster, earning well the
fame that he had gained. Even when it was clear that the crown
would sweep the rebels back to Ticonderoga before the summer was
out, his resolute demeanor still fired the tattered ranks with the hope
of victory. Clearly, he meant to identify himself with a stubborn,
brilliant fight for this rich province. Perhaps he foresaw a contest
on better terms and a new invasion, should the enemy continue
their advance southward on the lake passage.

Such, indeed, was the intention of His Majesty’s ministry. The
Canadian invasion, futile as it seemed, had consequences of tre-
mendous importance to the independence of America. For by it
the forces of the crown were divided, and the reinforcements now
arrived at Quebec under General John Burgoyne might otherwise
have given a conquering preponderance to Howe’s army in the

EXODUS

south. The plan was for this northern army to drive the rebels from
the province, take Ticonderoga and garrison it against future in-
vasion, and then to march down the Hudson and unite with Howe.
To drive out the rebels proved easy enough, but the counter in-
vasion was to be checked in the late autumn, when Arnold met it
with a fiery welcome at the battle of Valcour. And in the following
year, when the attempt was made again, against a rebuilt patriot
army, it was to go thundering down to defeat, with Arnold in the
front of the battle still, on the fields of Saratoga.

While Burgoyne, with a splendidly appointed army of eight
British regiments and two thousand German mercenaries, thirteen
thousand men, was preparing with assurance and deliberation to fol-
low his advantages, Arnold at Montreal was assaulted from the
west. “I have posted five hundred men at the Cedars, a narrow
pass fifteen leagues above this place,” he noted in a report of May
eighth to Washington. “They have two pieces of cannon and well
entrenched, by which the enemy must pass.” The post was de-
signed to protect Montreal from any hostile activity which the Tories
of western Canada might raise, and to cut them off from the British
symp athiz ers below. On May fifteenth Arnold wrote that, despite
threatened attack, the place was in little danger. Four days later,
i-hanks only to the cowardice of its commander, it was surrendered,
with four hundred men, to an equal number of Indians and about
a hundred and fifty British and Canadians. A small reinforcement,
on its way from Montreal, was ambushed and overpowered. Captain
Forster, at the head of the uprising, advanced triumphantly on
Montreal, where signs of a conspiracy in his favor seemed to promise
an easy victory should he appear.

The fire-eater dashed westward with a scant hundred men, and
entrenched, in expectation of attack. But Forster, encumbered by
prisoners and deserted by many of his Indians, hesitated, and when
Arnold was shortly reinforced with five hundred men, the tide
turned. Forster fell back. He gathered his prisoners under a guard of
Indians, who amused themselves by shooting them with mud bul-

100

BENEDICT ARNOLD

lets and other forms of savage sport, and he replied to Arnold’s sum-
mons that every rebel in his power would die for it if he were
attacked.

“Words cannot express my feelings at the delivery of this mes-
sage,” Arnold wrote to the commissioners. “Torn by conflicting pas-
sions of revenge and humanity, a sufficient force to take ample
revenge, raging for action, urged me on one hand; and humanity for
five hundred unh appy wretches, who were on the point of being
sacrificed if our vengeance were not delayed, plead equally strong
on the other.” He called, nevertheless, for an instant, surprise attack,
but a council of his officers voted it down in a storm of hot words.
Forster offered to exchange the prisoners for as many British cap-
tives, on condition that the Americans could not serve again in the
war. Arnold offered exchange on equal terms and the alternative
of immediate attack. He promised, if one prisoner died, to cut down
every soul that fell into his hands. The exchange was made, and
Forster slipped away into the fastnesses whence he had come.

Needless raids upon the Indian villages were marked by dis-
obedience of officers and sullen accusations of cowardice from the
fire-eater. He had saved Montreal, but there was a humiliation in
the affair to which his inevitable answer was a sour fury.

There were other shadows over Arnold’s crowded activities in
and about the city of Montreal, the old tangle of hatred, faction and
intrigue. In his letters he scrupulously avoided the personal side of
a wrangle, and sought to show it a public affair. The partnership
of Easton and Brown was still active, the fire-eater having effec-
tually excluded these gentlemen from the service of their country
by fastening upon them the suspicion of plundering. There was no
conclusive evidence, and the robbery seems only to have been,
as was usually the case, a matter of a few private soldiers helping
themselves to much needed equipment. But higher authorities are
easily blamed, and many were willing to suspect the embattled at-
torney and tavern-keeper-deacon of Pittsfield. And they, in turn,
were provoked by the spectacle of Arnold’s cool villainy, to use

EXODUS

IOI

an imm oderation of language by which their cause was melted in
its own. heat. Easton dashed to Philadelphia, where he was shortly
imprisoned for debt. Brown vainly applied to Wooster, Schuyler,
the co mmis sioners and General Horatio Gates, for a court of in-
quiry, fuming, denouncing, demanding the arrest of his enemy,
calling on “men and angels” to prove the charge, and succeeding
only, after a great many months had elapsed, in obtaining a hear-
ing before the Board of War at Philadelphia. With so little evidence
to act upon, the Board naturally gave credence to the placid state-
ments offered by Arnold in the interest of regular procedure and
the public good.

In a similar case, the General undertook to break the reputable
career of Colonel Moses Plazen. Here, however, there appeared a
new factor of importance: General Arnold’s acquisitive instinct.
The Colonel was a Canadian who had made a distinguished place
for himself in the service of the colonies. He had entered it at the
head of a regiment of French Canadian troops of his own raising
and had been prominent in affairs at Montreal since the coming of
Montgomery. But with the coming of Arnold trouble came also.
Hazen used his own judgment in interpreting Arnold’s orders,
with Arnold too busy and too cautious to force an open quarrel.
Hard language passed between them at the Cedars. They were
natural enemies, as rivals for high places in the Canadian service.

In June, shortly after his return from the Cedars, Arnold gave
orders to an aide to take possession of sundry merchandise from
various commercial houses in the city. The only payment offered
was orders on hims elf, which were counted worthless, as it was
then commonly known that the army was on the point of retreat.
The unwisdom of the action was heightened by the fact that the
seizures included silks and other goods of great value but of no use
to the army. The natural inference is that Arnold was arranging
some material return for his personal investments in the campaign.
The seizure, however, was made with all the regularity that could
be attached to such an act and fully reported to higher authorities.

102

BENEDICT ARNOLD

The goods were sent in charge of Major Scott to Chambly, on the
line of retreat, where Hazen, stationed at that post, was ordered to
receive and store them. Hazen, in a natural opposition to such
measures, refused at first to receive them, and Scott being called
away, they remained for a while unguarded on the river bank,
during which time a considerable portion disappeared. The poor
merchants, following disconsolately in the hope of payment, raised
a clamor against Arnold. And, characteristically, the fire-eater at
once defended himself against the inevitable charge of peculation,
by loudly accusing Hazen of negligence and disobedience of orders.

Colonel Hazen demanded a court-martial, and his wish was, in
the course of time, granted. The trial proved a victory for Hazen,
and, on the whole, a furious little farce. The testimony of Major
Scott, on which Arnold’s case depended, was declared inadmissible,
as he was interested in the verdict. The fire-eater told the court
that its action was unprecedented and unjust. This protest the court
pronounced “illegal, illiberal and ungentlemanlike,” refused it a
place in the minutes and demanded an apology. “Ungentleman-
like” was tactless. The fire-eater replied in a curious mixture of rage
and dignity.

“The very extraordinary note of the court,” he informed that
body, “and the directions given to the President, and his still more
extraordinary demand, are in my opinion ungenteel and indecent
reflections on a superior officer; which the nature and words of my
protest will by no means justify; nor was it designed as you have
construed it. I am not very conversant with courts martial, but this I
may venture to say: they are composed of men not infallible; even
you may have erred. Congress will judge between us; to whom I will
desire the General to transmit the proceedings of this court. This
I can assure you, I shall ever in public or private be ready to sup-
port the character of a man of honor; and as your very nice and
delicate honor in your apprehension is injured, you may depend as
soon as this disagreeable service is at an end (which God grant
may soon be the case,) I will by no means withhold from any

EXODUS

103

gentleman of the court, the satisfaction his nice sense of honor may
require. Your demand I shall not comply with.” In these words
he flung contempt and defiance in the teeth of the worthy judges,
summoned them to fight him at the first opportunity, and hinted,
as he had done before, that he was only too ready to quit a service
rendered intolerable by unfounded and malicious aspersions.

The judges referred the outrage to General Gates, commanding
at Ticonderoga, where the little drama was staged, demanding the
arrest of Arnold. But at that time the British counter invasion was
looming and a good organizer and fighter was needed. Gates dis-
solved the court. “The warmth of General Arnold’s temper,” he
commented in submitting the papers to Congress, “might possibly
lead him a little farther than is marked by the precise line of de-
corum to be observed towards a court martial,” but “the United
States must not be deprived of that excellent officer’s services at this
important moment.”

This event was to be reached in August, when Canada was in
the possession of the crown. But to return to Montreal, we find
Arnold had already been cultivating friendly relations with General
Gates. From Chambly, on the thirty-first of May, he had inscribed
a pleasant letter.

“My Dear General:

“I am a thousand times obliged to you for your kind letter of the 3rd
of April, of which I have a most grateful sense. I shall be ever happy in
your friendship and society; and hope, with you, that our next winter-
quarters will be more agreeable, though I must doubt it if affairs go as ill
with you as here. Neglected by Congress below; pinched with every want
here; distressed with the smallpox; want of Generals and discipline in our
army which may rather be called a great rabble; our late unhappy retreat from
Quebec, and loss of the Cedars; our credit and reputation lost, and great part
of the country; and a powerful foreign enemy advancing upon us, — are so
many difficulties we cannot surmount them. My whole thoughts are now bent
on making a safe retreat out of this country; however, I hope we shall not be
obliged to leave it until we have had one more bout for the honour of America.
I think we can make a last stand at Isle-aux-Noix, and keep the lake this

BENEDICT ARNOLD

104

summer from an invasion that way. We have little to fear; But I am
heartily chagrined to think that we have lost in one month all the immortal
Montgomery was a whole campaign in gaining, together with our credit, and
as many men, and an amazing sum of money. The Commissioners this day
leave us, as our good fortune has long since; but as Miss, like most other
Misses, is fickle, and often changes, I still hope for her favours again; and
that we shall have the pleasure of dying or living happy together.

“In every vicissitude of fortune, believe me, with great esteem and friend-
ship, my dear General, your obedient humble servant,

“Benedict Arnold.”

A day after this letter had been written, the fire-eater had wel-
comed to Canada General John Sullivan, his ranking officer, come
to join Thomas with a brigade of well equipped and uniformed
troops. With the death of Thomas from smallpox a day later, and
the subsequent removal of Wooster for incompetence, he had come
suddenly to the chief command. Ignorant of the forces against him,
seeing only a chance for greatness, he had met Wooster’s retreating
line, and turned it back to face the enemy once more.

A detachment hurried forward to surprise the British at Three
Rivers, midway between Quebec and Montreal. But a treacherous
guide misled them into a long morass, and the enemy was out to
meet them when the mud-stained stroops at last deployed on solid
ground. Colonel Wayne, swinging his hat, cheered on a long line
of blue and white, thrusting flanking parties to right and left,
driving twice his number of redcoats before him. It was Mad
Anthony’s first taste of fire. Aware now of the enemy’s superiority,
the rebel line boldly assaulted a breastwork from which a deadly
fire was poured upon them, reinforced by the shout, “We are three
to one!” Beaten back, threatened in the rear, they fled. Only
Wayne’s tireless efforts kept a semblance of order in the retreat. But
Sullivan obstinately held his ground, with the way open for Carle-
ton to pass him on the north and throw a force in his rear sufficient
to trap all the rebels in Canada. In vain his officers implored him
to retreat.

EXODUS

105

On the thirteenth of June, Arnold warned him again of the
necessity. “There will be more honor in making a safe retreat than
in hazarding a batde against such superiority. . . . These argu-
ments,” he added, “are not urged by fear for my personal safety;
I am content to be the last man who leaves this country, and fall,
so that my country may rise. But let us not fall altogether.” On
that day, Sullivan yielded, and, in orderly array, but not an hour
too soon, the retreat began.

Arnold arranged for the fortification of St. Johns, on which the
main army would fall back. He then returned to Montreal. Here, as
he grimly announced to Schuyler, “I shall remain, until I have
orders to quit it, or am attacked, when it will be too late.” On the
fifteenth, he received news of Sullivan’s decision, followed shortly
by young James Wilkinson, one of his aides, breathless from a hard
ride, and word that Carleton was marching to cut him off. He
acted quickly and on his own responsibility, gathered his forces,
crossed the river, and marched for St. Johns, destroying the bridge
behind him. Wilkinson galloped for Chambly with a plea to Sulli-
van to send a force to cover the retreat. General de Woedtke was
ordered to this duty, but the worthy Baron, who had opposed the
whole business of retreating, was nowhere to be found. He had
written to Franklin that he had many enemies, but sturdily an-
nounced that they were “all Tories.” The truth was, that the good-
hearted Knight of Malta had revealed a frailty for strong drink
which totally unfitted him as a commander. Wayne undertook the
duty, but no fighting was necessary, and Arnold marched safely
into St. Johns on the next day. Sullivan, who had formerly taken
a slightly contemptuous attitude toward Arnold, had now a word
of praise for this “very prudent and judicious retreat.”

With Carleton still close at their heels, a council of officers de-
cided unanimously to retire to Crown Point, and there prepare for
a stand. On Tuesday, the eighteenth, with the army embarked and
moving southward, a long scattering of laden barges down the
water, and the logs of the fort and the houses round about billowing

10 6 BENEDICT ARNOLD

gray smoke into the sky, Arnold and Wilkinson rode out to recon-
noiter the advancing enemy. Finally, they turned, and galloped
back to the shore, where the last bateau was waiting. They shot
down their horses and threw the bridles into the boat. Arnold shook
the hand of a somber chief of his savage allies, who had come to
say farewell. Then he ordered the men aboard, pushed the craft
from the bank himself, and leapt into the stern. They pulled
steadily along, the smoke rolling overhead, watching behind them
the bright flashes of steel and scarlet that moved around the blazing,
crumbling timbers of the fort^ until the scene had faded in distance
and the falling dusk.

CHAPTER VII

THE BATTLE OF VALCOUR
I. "Friends and Enemies .

Looking about them over the camp at Isle aux NoLx, where the
dirt-stained, tattered, starving soldiers gathered at dusk by their fires,
where the sick lay everywhere, unsheltered, in the wet grass, moan-
ing and crying out, and the new dead, stiffening in their rags,
waited a hasty burial in the morning, a number of officers, men
who had shown their skill and spirit in the face of the enemy, sat
down together and drank themselves insensible. Dr. Samuel Mey-
rick wandered ceaselessly among his charges, his tired face glisten-
ing with tears. It was an army beaten, broken and disheartened,
“ this wretched army,” Sullivan called it, “perhaps the most pitiful
one that was ever formed.” The men of the Canadian campaigns
had endured sufferings to which Valley Forge was nothing, and
soon, revived by the sense of home and the coming of a foreign
invader, they rose as bravely to the need as Washington’s veteran
line at Monmouth, two years after. The determination that had
led them forth awakened more vividly. Much of warfare had been
learned in this hard school of battle and defeat, and leaders of later
renown had first shown their qualities in its rigorous tests.

Sullivan, unwilling to tarnish his fame by ordering further
retreat, sent Arnold to Schuyler for orders. With his return, the
lean companies embarked again, with their burden of disease and
humiliation. On the first of July they were arriving at Crown Point,
and Crown Point they abandoned for Ticonderoga, leaving three
hundred new-made graves behind them.

107

io8 BENEDICT ARNOLD

Southward, the siege of Boston had ended in the retirement of
the British, and Washington, now almost hopelessly outnumbered
by Howe’s new army, was boldly preparing to defend New York.
At this time, the rebel colonies declared themselves a nation. The
King, much as Arnold might have done, had sought to drive hos-
tility into the open, there to crush it, and in so doing had only
fanned the flame. And the colonies, as obstinate as Arnold in his
quarrels, answered defiance with defiance.

Safe from their pursuers behind the walls of Ticonderoga, the
army of the northern department found itself assailed by the most
dangerous of all the multifarious intrigues which the uncertainties
and opportunities of the time aroused among ambitious officers.
Vague, unorganized, and cautiously expressed, an opinion was tak-
ing form among politicians and soldiers that the Commander-in-
chief was after all a man of mediocre talents and small experience,
and that an opportunity might shortly arise for his replacement by
a better qualified general. And very impressive among the candi-
dates for this honor stood General Horatio Gates.

This personage, short of stature but important of bearing, an
insignificant figure surmounted by a heavy face of genial gravity,
wr in kle-encircled eyes behind spectacles, a large mouth and a
prominent aquiline nose sharply pointed downward, had received
his training in the British regular army, had commanded a com-
pany under Braddock, and had been appointed Adjutant-General to
the Continental Army at the outbreak of the war. As Adjutant-
General at Cambridge, he had discovered that he knew more of
the detail and routine of an army than Washington, and, having
a natural ignorance of deeper qualities for action, he became strongly
convinced that the Americans would find in himself the ideal
commander. Gates was shallow and vulgar. But his shallowness
could be poured out in such broad expanses of military theory
and doctrine as to create a common impression of profundity and
wisdom. And his vulgarity was of a convivial sort, at its best when
mellowed by a few rounds of good liquor. So that, by dint of cen-

THE BATTLE OF VALCOUR 109

sorious assertions, subtle promises and a jovial good-fellowship,
Gates bad gained many strong admirers, both in Congress and
the army.

When Arnold was able to pursue an intrigue dispassionately, he
took an open position, put himself forward as the self-sacrificing
patriot attacked by jealous and treacherous enemies, as the gende-
man and soldier, half unwilling to accuse. Gates followed a more
delicate course, giving much time to the cultivation of friends in
Congress, where he succeeded in winning the confidence of Samuel
Adams and the powerful New England group. He did not aspire
immediately to replace Washington. His first objective was Schuy-
ler’s detached and important domain, the Northern Department.
For months Schuyler had been harassed by secret attempts to
injure his reputation. Vague reports were circulated until they
assumed the proportion of facts. He who had spent a greater part
of his own fortune in the hapless Canadian venture was accused of
embezzling the public funds, and he who had labored so tirelessly
and with such meager support from Congress to supply the scat-
tered forces was suspected of plotting to bring all available military
supplies to the frontier and there deliver them to the enemy. More
than once he had demanded a court of inquiry to vindicate his
honor, but since those who relayed the charges to their friends
refused to defend them openly, Washington found nothing on
which to begin an investigation.

It was with the New Englanders that Schuyler was most un-
popular. His enforcement of strict discipline while in command of
the army of invasion had emphasized to them the fact that he was
a Dutch aristocrat, and on him they were ready to blame their ter-
rible losses in the wreck of the Canadian armies. Of this disfavor
Gates took advantage in cultivating the New England delegation,
and his efforts won him the rank of Major-General and an order
to take command of the army “in Canada.” This distinction was
one of doubtful value, as, at the time of the appointment, there no
longer was an army in Canada. Sullivan, justly offended at being

BENEDICT ARNOLD

thus suddenly replaced by an officer rightfully his junior, resigned,
and went south to win greater glory in other fields of action. Gates
came determined to reorganize the northern army under adherents
of his own, but this resolve was suppressed by Schuyler, who brought
the matter to a head at their first interview at the headquarters in
Albany. Then the white-haired aristocrat, considering the differ-
ence settled on a friendly basis, placed Gates in command of Ti-
conderoga, the post of danger, and Gates, accepting the honor with
all amiability, applied himself again to Congress.

He wrote in ponderous earnestness to the delegates. He wrote
jokingly to “Dear Put,” and kept in lively correspondence with
others whose friendship might serve him. Among these was Ar-
nold. If the fire-eater perceived the undercurrents of division, he
refrained from committing himself, although his letters show that
he was on much warmer terms of intimacy with Gates than with
Schuyler. Gates’ last contact with Arnold had been at Cambridge,
where he had used his influence in his favor for the Kennebec ex-
pedition, and now he proffered more valuable services, saving him
from embarrassment in the tumultuous outcome of the Hazen court-
martial, and giving him the most important post it was in his
power to bestow. This appointment he conferred without the for-
mality of consulting either Congress or General Schuyler. “General
Arnold (who is perfectly skilled in maritime affairs),” he an-
nounced to John Hancock on the twenty-ninth of July, “has most
nobly undertaken to command our fleet on the lake. With infinite
satisfaction I have committed the whole of that department to his
care.” It was a wise choice, and by it Gates found himself winning
a powerful, albeit a dangerously intractable, ally and relieved of
troublesome duties.

Schuyler remained in the background, closely in touch with
the situation, holding things together. Already, finding the abuse
of his enemies intolerable, he had resigned, but Congress had
refused to accept the resignation, begging him to remain in control
during the crisis. Colonel Wayne was at the fort, another element

THE BATTLE OF VALCOUR

of strength. He was considered for promotion, and a friend in Con-
gress advised him — “inter nos ” — if he would win a general’s epau-
lettes, to court the favor and recommendation of Gates. Many am-
bitious officers were trying the same course. Wayne indignantly
rejected the proposal. With the departure of the thick-headed Baron,
Arnold had been left the only Brigadier in the department. To the
hospital at Lake George, which Schuyler had established to cleanse
the army of disease, de Woedtke had been borne, and there closed
his grotesque career in death.

II. Two Generals Turn Admiral.

The reorganized army at “Ty” was divided into four brigades
of four regiments each, of which Arnold commanded the First,
consisting of New England men. Carleton, with his thirteen thou-
sand, outnumbered them by more than ten thousand men. But
weeks before the arrival of the army, Schuyler had been gathering
carpenters and materials with which to build a fleet that would
command the lakes. Skilled shipbuilders were enticed from the sea-
board by fabulous wages. Arnold fully realized the importance of
a dominant position on the water. His plans conceived greater things
than were possible, but in the final achievement he had the satis-
faction of having squeezed adverse circumstances to the utmost.
Most of his ships were flat-bottomed affairs of no great size, carry-
ing sails, but also pierced for oars, so that they could be independent
of the fickle inland winds. The gondolas, smallest and least man-
ageable, carried a complement of about fifty men. The galleys,
larger and by virtue of a deeper keel more easily handled under
sail, carried a force of eighty or a hundred. These craft were the
latest development in freshwater warfare, and Arnold had had
experience in their construction on the St. Lawrence. But he hoped
to supplement them with a thirty-six-gun frigate, which would be
the real fighting power on the lakes, if less easy to bring into
action. Too many of the ship carpenters were down by the sea,

112

BENEDICT ARNOLD

however, pounding out hulls for the business of privateering, and
he had to abandon the plan.

It was another regret that of the nine hundred men needed to
man his squadron, there could be so few who had ever smelled of
tar. “We have a wretched motley crew in the fleet,” he wrote, “the
marines, the refuse of every regiment, and the sailors, few of them
ever wet with salt water.” He pleaded for deep-water sailors, a
hundred of them, to distribute through the fleet: “One hundred
seamen, no land-lubbers.” He had a good word, however, for the
spirited work of his carpenters, and all day the soldiers’ axes brought
stout timber crashing to the earth, the fortifications were growing in
strength, men and supplies coming in, a cheerful confidence every-
where. They were more than eight thousand soon, a force well able
to meet the British superiority in so strong a position. “Fortune,”
Wayne announced to “Dear Polly” at the mansion in Pennsylvania,
“has heretofore been a fickle goddess to us — and like some other
females, changed for the first new face she saw. We shall once
more court her in the face of all the British thunder, and take her
Vi et ctrmis from her present possessors.” Salt pork and fire cake
were replaced by venison, beef and mutton, vegetables and butter
and cheese, and punch and porter to wash them down. “We begin
to fear,” a young soldier wrote home, “that they will not Darst
to come and meet us.”

In August, with much flapping of sails and splashing of oars,
Arnold’s flotilla was on the water in its first maneuvers. Scouts
reported no danger as yet from the invasion, and the defenders
advanced to Crown Point, intending to cruise down the lake as far
as possible and choose a favorable position at which to make their
stand. On the fifteenth Arnold arrived at Crown Point, to take
command. There he found himself embroiled in a new difficulty,
caused by the uncertain relations of the two major-generals, Schuy-
ler and Gates.

Before the arrival of the retreating army, Schuyler had promised
the command of the fleet which he was already preparing to build

THE BATTLE OF VALCOUR

113

to an old friend, a sturdy Dutch seaman and soldier, Captain
Jacobus Wyncoop. Both Congress and General Gates, however,
contemplated the recommendation with placid indifference. Con-
gress did nothing; Gates, without consulting anybody, assigned the
command of the water to his ally, the fire-eating brigadier. Finding
matters in this way at Ticonderoga, Jacobus Wyncoop prudently
decided to accept a subordinate station until Congress might act.
And Arnold entrusted to him his principal vessel, a schooner which
he had christened in ungracious reference to King George, the
Royal Savage. Through every busy day, Wyncoop was expectandy
awaiting the order from Congress that would give him the place
which seemed so definitely assured him, and so dishonorably
usurped by the fiery little Yankee general. But the days passed,
filled with the crash of axes and hammers, the hoarse purring of
many saws, the commands of busding officers, and loud-voiced
cheerfulness, and yet unruffled by the longed-for dispatch. Patient
till the last possible moment, he suddenly rebelled.

On the night of the seventeenth, a detachment of soldiers guard-
ing a party of oar makers northward on the lake, undertook to
cheer themselves by building a great fire near the water’s edge. This
was interpreted as a signal of alarm, and Arnold ordered the schoon-
ers Liberty and Revenge to move down to their assistance. The gen-
eral’s irritable temper was at the time not improved by a slight
attack of the fever, prevalent around the camp. And the two ships
were scarcely under way, when they were brought to by a howl of
cannon from the Royal Savage. This action was explained in a curt
note: there was but one power on shipboard, a gentleman who
would tolerate no interference in his department, and who signed
himself, “Jacobus Wyncoop, Commander of Lake Champlain.”
Arnold replied that he must surely be out of his senses, and threat-
ened arrest. He had at least no worry on the outcome of the affair.
Both wrote urgently to Gates, and Gates ordered the refractory cap-
tain under guard.

“A little of the dictatorial power was exerted,” Gates confessed

BENEDICT ARNOLD

114

to Hancock, “but perhaps it was never more necessary than on
that occasion.” Wyncoop cooled and apologized, and Arnold pleaded
that he be allowed to leave camp without trial for his offense.
General Arnold had had trouble enough with courts-martial. The
discomfited Dutchman, therefore, hurried away to his chief at
Albany. Schuyler had already shown satisfaction when informed
of Arnold’s new command, and was much surprised at the “strange
infatuation” of his friend in not yielding to an officer of higher
rank. Both he and Washington had declared the choice of Arnold
a good one, and the querulous memorials of Wyncoop were re-
ceived without sympathy at Philadelphia.

The intimate cooperation of Gates and Arnold had not been
without occasional passages of gentlemanly jocularity. “The sur-
geon’s mate of Colonel St. Claire’s regiment,” Arnold suggested in
one of his epistles, “has a good box of medicines and will incline
to go with the fleet. I wish he could be sent here, or someone who
will answer to kill a man secundum artem’.’ The surgeon, as it
happened, failed to appear, so Arnold borrowed a case of instru-
ments and a few drugs, and sailed without him, his ten little war-
ships pounding northward against the blustering Autumn weather.
He had also borrowed from a friend who had borrowed it in turn
from Benjamin Franklin, the Rev. Dr. Price’s Observations on the
Nature of Civil Liberty, and read it in his cabin. Far to the north-
ward, down the water, Carleton was informed by a captured Ameri-
can scout that Benedict Arnold “was Commodore on the lake, and
commanded on board the Royal Savage in great force.” Twenty
thousand men was the prisoner’s generous estimate of his strength.

Gallandy outriding a six-day gale from the northeast, the ten
little ships arrived, early in September, at Isle aux Tetes, in the
narrow bottom of the lake. There the first British outpost, several
hundred strong, fled at the sight of their sails through a morning
mist, and alarmed the main army with the news that the rebels
were upon them in an armada of forty great vessels. The enemy,
however, were far too strongly placed for even a raid to succeed,

THE BATTLE OF VALCOUR 115

and in this narrower part of the lake it was possible for them to
bombard the Americans from the shore. Arnold fell back to Wind-
mill Point, where he blocked the lake by mooring his ships in a line
across it. Guard boats, about a mile below, maintained a vigilant
patrol, and two parties of scouts, on the two sides of the water, went
forward to learn the strength of the enemy.

Even at this advanced station, the proud warrior was not out
of touch with the power behind the battle lines. “My character/
he complained in a report to Gates from Windmill Point, “is much
injured by a report prevailing in Philadelphia of my having seques-
tered the goods seized in Montreal.” He begged the general to be
kind enough to make the facts definitely known. “I cannot but
think it extremely cruel, when I have sacrificed ease, health and a
great part of my private property in the cause of my country, to be
cal umni ated as a robber and thief; at a time, too, when I have it
not in my power to be heard in my own defense.”

But there were less distant enemies to be considered. Parties had
been sent ashore to cut fascines, stout poles with which a defense
against bullets and boarders was being woven along the gunwales
of the low and partially decked gondolas, and this had led to
ckirmiching with Indians and soldiery. Hostile eyes watched them
from the forests, and on dark nights the white birch canoes of the
savages crept out like wary ghosts upon the water. At night, soon,
there were heard mysterious sounds from the shore. Arnold, con-
cluding that the enemy was secretly preparing a battery and realiz-
ing rhar such an attack would sooner or later be undertaken, fell
back to seek a still more advantageous position. Some three hun-
dred British Canadians and Indians kept pace with the line of ships,
both parties enlivening the journey with an irregular fire. On the
nineteenth of September they arrived at Bay St. Armand, north of
Cumberland Head, on the western shore. Southward, beyond the
Head, long and thickly wooded, rose the island of Valcour. And
Arnold, finding that the channel between the island and the main-
land was deep and broad enough for his fleet, decided to enter it

ii6 BENEDICT ARNOLD

and there await the coming of whatever Carleton might bring
against him.

There, on the thirtieth, the last of the shipyard’s products ar-
rived under General David Waterbury, of the Connecticut militia,
second officer of the fleet. Arnold had now sixteen vessels. Of these,
he depended most on his four row-galleys, the Congress, the Wash-
ington, the Trumbull and the Lee, and took personal command of
the Congress immediately on her arrival. The galleys carried eight
guns, throwing from eighteen- to four-pound shot, and were worked
by crews of eighty men. The unwieldy sloop Enterprise and the
schooner Royal Savage were manned by fifty men with twelve guns.
The Revenge was more lightly armed, and smallest of all the sailing
ships was the Liberty, the captured schooner on which Arnold had
begun his naval career in ’seventy-five, now doing duty on the line
of c ommuni cation' and destined to have no part in the coming
engagement. Eight little gondolas completed the force, each
with a heavy gun at the bow, six two pounders at the sides, and a
crew of forty-five good fellows. In addition to the cannon at bow,
stern and broadside, the ships mounted from eight to sixteen swivel
guns, too small in caliber to accomplish any great damage. In
accordance with the orders of General Gates, the line of fifteen
sail was divided into three divisions, General Arnold in the center,
General Waterbury, with the Washington, on the right, and Colonel
Edward Wigglesworth, third officer, on the left, on board the
Trumbull. “This disposition,” as Gates’ prudent nature viewed the
situation, “will teach the captains of the vessels to know their com-
manding officers, and prevent any confusion or dispute about com-
mand in case an unlucky shot, or other accident, should take off
the general.”

To Governor Sir Guy Carleton, taking off the general would
have been an eminently satisfactory event. He knew enough of
this person to be assured that his presence meant fighting. When
Arnold was cruising the lake and his strength was realized, he
delayed his own sailing for a month, until three new ships, too

THE BATTLE OF VALCOUR 117

large to pass the rapids, could be brought overland from the St.
Lawrence, and rebuilt on the lake. He already outnumbered the
American fleet, but these three vessels alone might have proved a
match for it. Strongest of the three, was a large three-masted
square-rigged ship, of the size that Arnold had hoped in vain to
build, the Inflexible. On her he mounted eighteen twelve-pounders.
At the same time, two schooners were brought up and reassembled,
the Carleton, and, in honor of the Governor’s lady, the Maria. This
powerful triad, however, was but the last of many exertions. The
ready timbers for ten gunboats had been shipped from England,
and ten more built in the shipyards by the lake. Every available
carpenter had been drafted, and the royal navy had supplied arms
and equipment in abundance, as well as seven hundred sailors, and
a number of spirited young officers, eager to show their worth.
Thirty longboats, four hundred bateaux, the thirty-ton gondola.
Loyal Convert, captured from the Americans at Quebec, and a great
two-masted scow, bristling with cannon and howitzers, the Thun-
derer, lay crowded on the water by the camp.

At the end of September, the fleet weighed anchor and moved
up the lake, to see what might be done about the rebels. With the
Inflexible, Maria and Carleton in the lead, the twenty gunboats
followed, each depending for its offensive strength on one piece
mounted in the bow and larger than anything in Arnold’s arma-
ment, and four longboats with provisions brought up the rear. The
Thunderer and Loyal Convert formed the fleet’s awkward squad,
and tagged along as best they could. If Carleton’s ninety guns
barely outnumbered Arnold’s, they were all of heavier caliber, could
hurl twice his weight of metal, and, as heavier shot was much more
effective than the difference in weight would indicate, his advantage
was tremendous. In addition to this, experienced sailors worked
the vessels, veteran artillerymen manned the gunboats, infantry of
the regular army served as marines, and the whole was supported
by a substantial commissary. A pack of savages rambled at hand to
make the shores unsafe for the enemies of the King. And behind

ii8 BENEDICT ARNOLD

all these, Burgoyne and the ponderous main army were waiting,
ready to follow in their bateaux as soon as the way should be
cleared. Orders were issue from the Maria by Captain Thomas
Pringle of the royal navy, Carleton accompanying him to take the
responsibility in larger problems.

111. For the Honor of America.

Arnold’s last desire in the dark days of the Canadian disaster
had been, as he had written to Gates in cheerful recognition of
defeat, “one more bout for the honour of America.” Wayne, and
the garrison at Ticonderoga were confident that Carleton would not
be able to pass their fleet. Gates, who could judge best the British
strength, and was by nature cautious, had prepared the minds of his
men for bad news when the echoes of Arnold’s cannon, firing at
some Indians on the shore, had sent vague reports of a battle flying
southward. The fire-eater himself was optimistic. When one of his
spies reported the British superiority, he was unable to believe their
advantage so great, and sent the man to Ticonderoga in irons.

Gates’ instructions to his admiral reminded him that a strictly
defensive war was being maintained, but demanded that if attacked,
he receive the enemy “with such cool determined valour, as will
give them reason to repent their temerity.” To keep up the spirits of
his men, however, Arnold was to make it appear as if he intended
an offensive campaign. “Words occasionally dropped from you,”
Gates explained it with the tact of an adept, “with that prudence
which excludes every sort of affectation, may, together with all your
motions, induce our people to conclude it is our real intention to
invade the enemy.”

The retreat to Valcour Island hardly served this purpose, but it
was an essentially prudent movement, Arnold had informed Gates
of his intention of retiring thither, and announced his willingness
to return north if desired. At Valcour, he explained, the fleet would
have a good harbor from which it might run out to battle in the

THE BATTLE OF VALCOUR 119

open lake, there some twenty miles in width, and where, were they
attacked, their flanks would be protected and their fire concentrated.
As the wind blows north or south on the lake, their opponents
would naturally enter the passage from above, before a north wind,
where, if defeated, none could escape, while the Americans might at
any time retire. The island was high and closely wooded, leaving
small opportunity for Carleton to land cannon upon it. Gates,
whose instructions generously acknowledged an ignorance of mari-
time affairs and left much to Arnold’s judgment, did not object to
the position.

On shipboard, however, the commander’s decision was disputed.
Arnold was apparently the only officer who realized that the fleet
must make a definite stand. If it could not conquer, it must delay
the enemy, for the season was late, and winter would end the
campaign. It would have been of little service lying under the
guns of Ticonderoga. And there was that in Arnold’s nature which
loved a close gamble for high stakes, for glory, honor, for Canada.
He still belittled the reports of Carleton’s fleet, but he knew that it
would be superior to his, and trusted that in the narrow channel the
full strength of the enemy could not be brought against him. He
paid no attention, therefore, to the opinion put forward by General
Waterbury, that the fleet should accompany the enemy southward
in a running fight.

October came, and the days passed in anxious waiting on the
first American fleet. The men, the white flesh seen too often through
their rags, shivered and grew hoarse as the fleet’s substitute for
warm clothing ran low in the barrels. Arnold amused himself by
seizing natives of the shore suspected of being in touch with the
enemy, and shipping them to Ticonderoga.

Early in the morning of October the eleventh, a guard boat,
tugging at her moorings off the northern tip of the island, sighted at
last the black hulls and rounded canvas of His Majesty’s squadron,
the advance of the invasion. Leaning breathlessly forward, close to
the water in their stolid little craft, they watched the great hull of the

120

BENEDICT ARNOLD

Inflexible loom slowly around Cumberland Head, followed by a
long train of sail. Flint was cracking on iron and tinder, their little
cannon flashing flame and bellowing out its warning signal, which
echoed along the narrow passage.

Down in the channel, at its southerly end, a semicircle of fifteen
small ships tugged and splashed at their anchor ropes. A clear sky
reflected its brilliance on the water, whipped into whitecaps by a
strong north wind. Westward, over the forest, the peaks of the
Adirondacks gleamed white with snow, and the pine trees stood
out along the summit of Valcour, like New England’s symbolic
Appeal to Heaven, wildly waving their arms in the cold wind.
Crackling at the masthead of each ship was a flag of thirteen stripes
and a blue field, with the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George,
which raised a note of jubilant defiance above the waiting line.
From each ship a crowd of ragged men gazed excitedly, uttering
solemn oaths of vengeance for their country’s wrongs, speculating
jocosely on the gruesome calamities which the bedizened tyrants
of Britain might expect that day.

Hours passed. The wind brushed over the forest and rattled the
rigging overhead, but still the watchers saw no enemy upon the
channel. For Carleton’s scouts had not reported the American posi-
tion at Valcour, and he expected to find them in the open lake. He
must, therefore, attack awkwardly against the wind, or allow Arnold
the advantage of striking at him from the windward. Arnold
watched from the deck of the Congress, alert and confident.

At eleven in the morning, Carleton sighted a rebel patrol boat off
the southern point, swung in, and found the rebel line. The wind,
strong from the north, was cut off in the lee of the island, and they
found later to advance against it up the channel was most difficult
of all. The three sailing ships tacked and tacked again in futile eager-
ness for batde. The giant scow, Thunderer, her huge square sails
blustering helplessly, drifted steadily southward out of harm’s way,
followed in like manner by the Loyal Convert. The twenty gun-
boats, with sails furled and oars clutching desperately at the water.

THE BATTLE OF VALCOUR 121

advanced in a slow, irregular line, and were the first to round the
point and gain the windy channel. Down to meet them, before the
larger ships could come to their support, rode the four galleys and
the Royal Savage, wheeled, and slid along before them with a
thunderous exchange of fire.

Here, through the smoke of battle, Arnold saw for the first
time the tremendous strength against him. Here, too, was a brief
opportunity, by striking a divided foe, to gain a narrow victory. But
the Royal Savage, mismanaged by her crew of landsmen, battered at
long range by the Inflexible, threatened disaster in the perilous man-
euver, and the Carleton was steadily closing in, ready to enter the
broken American line. He signalled for the ships to fall back and
resume their places, grinding his teeth in fury as the schooner
veered and tacked in the uncertain gusts under the lee of the
island, cursing the lubbers in a hoarse whisper as she ran too close
to the shore and drove aground. The nearest gunboats splintering
her timbers with their shot, keeled over too far for the crew to fight
their guns, her sails flapping in impotent despair, she was aban-
doned by her men. The galleys crept back into line, returning the
fire of the enemy from the twin cannon at their sterns.

At noon, the gunboats were abreast of the American crescent
line, and later, the Carleton came into range among them with a
ponderous roar of cannon. The entire American fleet was now in
action, giving and receiving a cannonade which impressed even
the old veteran, von Riedesel, commander of the Hessian merce-
naries. From the shores on either side, the Indians kept up an ex-
cited and ineffective fire, filling every momentary lull in the storm
of battle with their unearthly yells.

Powder had been too scarce for the American gunners to prac-
tice with their arms, but if awkward at first, they warmed to the
work, and directed a more and more deadly fire as the fight pro-
gressed, splashing round shot into the enemy sides and showering
them with grape. Lying in mid-channel, the Congress bore the
heaviest fire. And Arnold, seeing that his men were not getting

122

BENEDICT ARNOLD

the best for their powder, aimed most of the shots himself, moving
swiftly from gun to gun, sighting along the barrel as his strong arms
swung it to the right angle and adjusted the screw beneath, and
then on to the next as the gunner reached out his match, the flame
shot up from the touchhole, and the piece leapt back upon the
hawsers that held it, hurling the iron from its muzzle with a roar
that shook the deck. Quickly unloosed and rolled back, sponge
rammed down to clear out the sparks, powder ladled in and wadded
down with tire r amm er, and the charge snugly fitted on top, it was
ready as the commander came again. Cheering on his men, laughing
when an enemy shot sent the sharp splinters flying, turning quickly
to a wounded soldier, Arnold paused only from time to time to
gaze along his line of battle, on each side of him bellowing smoke
and a futile fury of iron shot against an unwavering British line. All
the vessels showed scars, the masts of some of the gondolas tilted
at dangerous angles, but their guns were still at work, and they
could still, faintly heard through the tumultuous din, follow a well-
aimed discharge with a cheer.

Two gunboats in turn fell silent, careened and slid nose down-
ward under water, hoarsely applauded from the rebel hulls. An-
other, late in the fight, exploded with a deafening gust of flame,
leaving a wreck of shattered timbers and Hesse-Hanau artillery-
men. At five o’clock, with the wind weaker, but still holding from
the north, a consultation on the British flagship determined to end
the action for the day. The rebels had been badly battered and
could not hope to fight a passage through them. In the morning,
batteries on the shore could force a surrender. The Carleton, how-
ever, in advance of the gunboat line, her guns silenced and her rig-
ging so damaged that she could not make sail, was unable to move,
and the American gunners made the best of their advantage in a
furious effort to sink her. Two gunboats were sent to tow her down,
and gallantly, in the face of ball, grape and musketry, succeeded
in dragging her out of range.

Same six hundred yards from the American, the new British

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THE BATTLE OF VALCOUR

battle line was formed, anchors splashed down and guns opened
anew. The firing, however, was infrequent and ineffectual. The
Indians on the shore continued for a while to bang away with up-
roarious zest and small execution. As darkness closed in, the ex-
plosions slowly subsided, and America’s crippled fleet lay in a quiet
broken only by low voices and the splash of water pumped from its
leaking hulls. Red flames for a time spread a weird glow over the
southern point of Valcour, showed them the shapes of the hostile
ships in a lurid silhouette, shot upward in a sudden roaring column,
hurling abroad the fiery remnants of the Royal Savage, and hissed
at last into silence and obscurity.

With a foggy night closing in, and signs of a strong northeaster
to follow, Arnold had no thought of waiting in patient submission
for the morning. His ammunition was three-quarters gone, and his
leaking vessels, outnumbered and outweighed, could hope for
nothing from a renewal of the fight. The gondola, Philadelphia,
was allowed to sink, as only the steady efforts of all her men could
keep her afloat. “The Congress,” in the words of Arnold’s report,
“received seven shot between wind and water; was hulled a dozen
times ; had her mainmast wounded in two places; and her yard in
one.” Every ship had manned her pumps, and it was plain that an-
other such hammering would finish them. In the cabin of the
Congress, Waterbury, Wigglesworth and Arnold, three tired men
smelling of sweat and burnt powder, met, passed around a glass
and agreed to retire. Orders were tersely given and quickly exe-
cuted. At seven o’clock, through a black, damp night, the fleet
was creeping southward in a stealthy, silent file.

The Trumbull led, found the opening that had been chosen and
stole through. A single light was set in the stern of each vessel, and
so screened as to be visible only to the next in line. The Washington,
and last of all, the Congress, brought up the rear. Rains hissed
through the mist-laden night, and gusts of sleet rattled over the
slippery decks. Shivering and grumbling in the wet and cold,
Carleton’s regiments came up in their bateaux, built their fires and

BENEDICT ARNOLD

124

placed their guards along the shores, not knowing that the prey
had fled for cover. Before daylight, twelve thousand men were
ashore, and gun after gun landed and dragged over the slippery
forest soil to the banks of the channel. But daylight came at last,
hazy and gray, to show to the eager victors & stretch of rippling
water, with only the protruding mast of the Philadelphia, holding
up in pitiful irony one lonely, bedraggled emblem of rebellion.

Roused from their berths in the cabin of the Maria, Captain
Pr ing le stared at the Governor, and the Governor at Captain Pringle.
The immediate reaction of both was to be up and after them. The
signal danced aloft at the flagship’s masthead, the capstans briskly
clicked in answer as dripping anchors rose and sails fluttered into
the wind once more, drew taut and straining as the ships swung
out on their southward course. But Carleton, when the sun was up
and the fog cleared, seeing no sign of an enemy, and realizing that
he had left without providing for the disposition of his army, re-
turned to organize a more orderly pursuit.

In the meantime, Arnold had come to anchor at Schuyler’s
Island, some twelve miles south of Valcour, where his men were
busy plugging leaks and mending their rigging. Two of the gon-
dolas were hastily dismantled and sunk. Early in the afternoon they
were moving south again. Lighter and lighter grew the wind, and
at last shifted, flapping back the sails in the faces of the tired and
anxious men. The Enterprise and Revenge, tacking steadily, made
safe headway, but the four galleys and the five little gondolas must
needs struggle laboriously with their oars. At dawn on the thir-
teenth, after a night of aching toil, they had passed the Islands of
the Four Winds, and were within thirty miles of Crown Point.
Behind them, through the lifting mist, the sails of the pursuers grew
larger on the water.

A new breeze from the north brought the towering Inflexible
and her two sisters within range before the fugitives could profit by
it. Small in the distance behind them, the gunboats were struggling
eagerly forward. The oars of the Congress were shipped, her sails

125

THE BATTLE OF VALCOUR

set again. Arnold, a short, soldierly figure standing on the raw
green timbers, already cracked and scarred by battle, watched the
chase until the Maria, in the lead, with a low, long-echoing explo-
sion, opened fire. Little geysers leapt up from the water about him,
where the shot were falling. His face darkened by a rough growth
of beard and shadowed by his black, wind-blown hair, his clothing
unkempt and stained, the crew of the Congress watched him and
wondered what their fate would be. His eyes narrow for a moment,
perhaps, his jaw jerks forward in a sudden gesture of some brief
emotion, he slowly moistens his bps, turns, and tells the gunners to
be ready.

The Enterprise and Revenge, the galleys Trumbull and Lee, and
one gondola, stood well to the south and held to their course rather
ffian lose all in the hopeless struggle behind them. The Congress
and Washington, with four gondolas keeping pace, began a slow
running fight, their squat bows determinedly butting the water
aside, every sail in the wind and oars from time to time shot out
for a few strong pulls to some place of advantage in the course.
Cannon crashed intermittently. Through Split Rock, the narrow
doorway to the lower lake, they passed, still, more than twenty
miles from harbor. The Washington was lagging in the race. Water-
bury, the only officer of his battered and badly leaking ship still
on his feet, the Inflexible on one side of him and the Maria on the
other, emptied his guns in a last burst of defiance and hauled down
his flag.

Four British gunboats had crept into the action, exchanging
shots with the four gondolas. But these must inevitably surrender
if the Congress struck. It was the little flagship now that barred their
way, and they gathered round her in a ring. For more than two
hours, the long fight had gone on. Now, surrounded, the Maria,
Carleton and Inflexible slashing her with round and grape, the gun-
boats adding what they could, she lay in a haze of drifting smoke,
her fierce discharges drowned in the brutal thunder of their guns,
her low-set hull a-tremble as their shot crashed into its timbers.

126

BENEDICT ARNOLD

Arnold was down among his gunners, crouching behind the can-
non as he gripped and sighted them, determined that the invaders
should lose one more of their precious days before they advanced
ag ain. His own concise report to Schuyler tells the outcome of the
action.

“They kept up an incessant fire on us for about five glasses
with round and grape shot which we returned as briskly. The sails,
rigging and hull of the Congress were shattered, and torn in pieces,
the First Lieutenant and three men killed, when, to prevent her
fallin g into the enemy’s hands, who had seven sail around me, I ran
her ashore in a small creek ten miles from Crown Point.”

Oars foaming at her sides, she shot through, and bore up to the
windward, so that the sailing ships would be slow to follow. The
gondolas joined the sudden dash, and the five ships were set on
fire, their men deploying along the bank to hold the enemy away
until their destruction was assured. The wounded were helped
ashore, while fine columns of smoke curled out into the wind, and
a warning crackle of musketry made the advancing gunboats pause.
Arnold was the last man to leave the Congress, leaping into the
shallow water and wading out upon the sand, with the flames
dancing over the splintered wreckage on his ship, clamoring
around the mainmast where her banner flashed still among the
billowing clouds of smoke.

In a swift file, on a narrow forest trail, the retreat was begun
again, five successive explosions echoing behind it. Carleton at
once landed his Indians, who set out at a fast pace by another way,
hoping to satisfy their appetites for slaughter in an ambuscade. But
the men, some two hundred of them, burdened with weariness,
their wounded, and their arms, had passed safely when the trap
was laid, and shordy after nightfall, came out upon the lake shore,
across from the low earthworks of Crown Point. The little outpost
had already learned of the first batde, but of the second they had
only heard the rumble of cannon from northward down the lake,
and at last had rowed out to meet the five returning survivors, and

THE BATTLE OF VALCOUR 127

to be told of Arnold’s plight, hopelessly outnumbered and sur-
rounded. And now, from Chimney Point, across the water, they
saw fires spring up, and heard a long halloo. The fugitives were
ferried over, and had, no doubt, a brief rest and a few congratula-
tory rounds of warm New England rum. Arnold ordered everything
immediately loaded on shipboard and all the buildings of the post
set on fire. At four in the morning, the little armament furled sail at
Ticonderoga, in safe water, the General, as he confessed, “exceed-
ingly fatigued and unwell, having been without sleep or refresh-
ment for near three days.”

IV. Ticonderoga Stands Unconquered.

For a day and a night, the fire-eater rested his exhausted body.
He then rose, inspected the garrison and fortifications, and wrote
his report of the second engagement to Schuyler. Both major-gener-
als were satisfied that their little navy had been given the best that
was possible in the shipyards and in battle. Gates looked upon the
man who had weathered so much of fire and iron and perilous escape
with a generous respect. The defeat was not considered a serious
matter, for the walls of Ticonderoga remained to be conquered,
and it increased Arnold’s popularity as another active rebuttal of
the opinion common among Englishmen, that the Americans
would not fight. Scandal, to be sure, lingering from the Hazen
court-martial, toll teased him, and there were those among the
officers who roundly condemned his strategy upon the lake.

One veteran, congratulating the new Governor of New Jersey,
added, “in a private way,” some reflections on the battle. “General
Arnold,” he confided, “our evil genius to the north, has, with a good
deal of industry, got us clear of all our fine fleet, only five of the
most indifferent of them, one row galley, excepted; and he has
managed his point so well with the old man, the General, that he
has got his thanks for his services. Our fleet, by all impartial ac-
counts, was much the strongest, but he suffered himself to be sur-

128

BENEDICT ARNOLD

rounded between an island and the mainland, where the enemy
landed their men on both places, and annoyed our men from
both places, more than from their vessels; but still our people re-
pelled them with ease the first afternoon. In the night, he gave
orders to every vessel to make the best of their way, by which they
became an easy prey, beat by one, twos and threes, and ran them
on shore, or destroyed them all; but one row galley fell into their
hands. This was a pretty piece of admiralship, after going to their
doors almost, and bantering them for two months or more.” The
disappointment was shared by many.

Britannia, sensitive to the heroism of her sons upon the water,
was well pleased with the victory, and Sir Guy, in due course, became
Knight of the Bath. His army was now encamped at Crown Point.
Riedesel, returning from a reconnaissance to Ticonderoga, reported
that the place could easily be taken by the force under their com-
mand. The nine thousand Americans who manned the works
expected an attack at any time and awaited it with enthusiasm. But
the winter was now too near for a siege, and Carleton’s prudent
nature restrained him from seeking further glory in an assault. The
mere fact of Arnold’s presence promised that the rebel lines could
not be carried at one charge. Far-reaching injuries to his cause might
follow a repulse, and as long as he controlled the lake, Ticonderoga
might be attacked when he pleased. He maintained at Crown Point,
however, all the appearances of ominous preparation, in order to
prevent detachments of the garrison from reinforcing Washington
in the south.

A few days after the battle, a crowd of ragged, haggard men
marched into the parade ground at Ticonderoga, a hundred of
Wayne’s Pennsylvanians, whom he had sent to the hospital at Lake
George as unfit for duty, and who, hearing of the loss of the fleet,
returned to take their places at the breastworks of the fort. The
garrison received them with a cheer, and Mad Anthony returned
their salute with a sad, proud smile. Through the perils of battle
and disease, through miseries, as Wayne him self confessed, “the bare

THE BATTLE OF VALCOUR

129

recital of which would shock humanity,” there had come into being
a gaunt and knotty individual, the Revolutionary soldier.

A good fellow with his friends, coarsely brutal when antago-
nized, he was easily moved by the whims of the crowd but utterly
impatient of any control that did not appeal to his own sense of
justice. The crew of the captured Washington, treated to grog,
praised and gently admonished by Carleton, sent home on parole
with presents of food and clothing, so forgot principles in their ad-
miration for this generous conduct that Gates dared not allow them
within his lines. Within the lines there was no such tempering of
patriotism. The prospect of being in a battle would always bring
a horde of eager rebels to the front; it was the tedium of marching,
countermarching and garrison duty that made them grumble and
go home. “If we are not attacked within six days,” a soldier in the
fort announced to Jenny, “general Carleton deserves to be hanged.”

Despising England with the savage intensity of hatred that
wars breed, the rebel soldier was almost equally suspicious of all
the newfangled notions of military discipline, and fought against
them with mutiny and guile and placid disregard, until some strong
leader broke him to the harness and taught him to be proud to wear
it. Poverty and hardship whetted his acquisitive appetites and made
him none too popular with the peaceable inhabitants. The moral
restraints to which he had been born and bred relaxed before the
arduous and adventuresome business of soldiering. He gambled
what little he had. He cursed with a zest which, as the pious com-
plained, no American soldier had used before, and did not suit the
character of the champion of civil liberty. He loved sport and
eluded formalities. He stole out a-hunting for rabbits or pigeons
or such game as Providence might offer, and indeed it was a good
captain who could prevent his men, as they walked along on the
march, from banging away at whatever marks might catch their
fancies. He slipped away for friendly picnics in the woods, he fought,
singly and in mobs, and he stood in solemn silence while camp cul-
prits were flogged or hanged. In this desolate lack of a more subtle

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BENEDICT ARNOLD

entertainment, jhis inevitable recourse was strong drink. Quite
possibly, be had been drunk into the army by a recruiting sergeant.

“Great confusion was in the camp,” Ebenezer Elmer recorded
in his journal, “as strong liquor is now plenty; and this day being
appointed by the Creator as a day of rest, was allowed to most of
them as such: but instead of spending it as he has directed, many
were using it to satisfy their brutish passions. May God Omnipo-
tent convince us of our error, and ere it is too late deliver us from
the bondage of sin and Satan.” The officers, he noticed, were not
immune, and at night, as he described it, “Many of them got very
happy; upon which, appointing Captains Dickinson and Potter and
Major Barber, Sachems, they knocked up an Indian dance, at which
they yelled much.” Another soldier, weakening before the tempter,
rose again to announce his contrition in verse.

“Both the last nights quite drunk was I,

Pray God forgive me the sin;

But had I beep in good company.

Me in that case no man had seen.”

Wages, when they were paid, brought an immediate reaction of
howling jollity. And when the Whig ladies of Philadelphia, having
raised a sum of money, suggested giving two dollars cash to every
tattered warrior at Valley Forge, Washington tactfully replied that
a shirt would be a much more suitable present. To this ubiquitous
thirst may be ascribed the general prevalence of drunkenness after
the war, and, close on the heels of sin, the temperance movement
which has raised so ponderous a monument in the land.

This gaunt and raw-boned personage, the Revolutionary soldier,
might be seen, as well as anywhere else, standing guard by the
headquarters of Major-General Horatio Gates. A tall, lean man, his
shoes out at the toes, muscular legs showing through the holes in
his stockings, leather breeches and a wretched old coat about his
body, a weathered, bristly face, a three-cornered hat with a dirty
cockade, hair tied at the nape of the neck with a dirtier ribbon—

THE BATTLE OF VALCOUR 131

a tall, lean man, a rough, worn face with a whimsical uncertainty
about the mouth and in the patient, deep-set eyes — he stands, the
butt of his long firelock on the ground and his hands gripping the
barrel, legs well apart and knees bending and straightening in a
gesture of vacant abstraction. From time to time, he peers through
the door behind him, to see what he can see. Suddenly, on the path
from the anchorage. General Arnold is approaching. The sentry
reaches one hand into his hair to scratch behind an ear, and watches
him draw nearer with a symptom of interest in his face. He straight-
ens his shoulders a little. He touches a bony finger to the side of
his hat, moistens his lips in a crooked, convivial grin, spits adroidy
into the bore of his gun, and inquires,

“General, how be ye?”

The General raises an arm in a curt half salute, a trace of an
answering smile on his lips, and crosses the threshold, heedless of
the graceless visage peering after him around the door.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FIRE-EATER WOOS A LADY AND WINS A BATTLE
7. Points of Honor.

“Gentleman” and “honor,” words so useful and so significant
to the hero of Quebec and Valcour, were new and not too clearly
defined in the speech of his rebellious countrymen. The Sons of
Liberty had a sturdy contempt for all social distinctions. It is told
of General Putnam that, when commanding a body of provincial
auxiliaries in one of the old French wars, his outspoken resentment
against the disdainful airs of the British officers brought from one
of them a challenge. It was explained to Put that he had been
challenged to fight, and that it was now his privilege to choose the
weapons. He chose two kegs of gunpowder with slow-matches: the
combatants would sit upon the kegs, and the first to be blown up
would be the loser. The kegs were brought and the matches
lighted. The Yankee sat with folded arms, his nose in the air, his
hat cocked over one eye and his heels kicking the barrel staves with
all the unconcern of the gentleman to whom death is nothing if
honor be maintained. But the Englishman, disturbed by the ap-
proach of the flame and his unusual situation, left his place and
retired to a safe distance. There was no explosion, as the kegs
contained only a few quarts of onions.

The officers of the Revolution, however, had begun to learn the
more sophisticated conceptions of dignity and self-respect. They
were rough diamonds, for the most part. “Why cannot we have
gentlemen for officers?” Montgomery had complained, disgusted
by his clamoring New Englanders. It was inevitable that with the
size of the organization for war and of the undertaking, the result-

132

THE FIRE-EATER WOOS A LADY 133

ing upheaval and opportunity would cultivate ambitions and a sense
of importance. To the consequent confusion of disputes and rivalries
there was added a confusion of courts of appeal. The state militia-
men were responsible to their state legislatures, the Continental
Army to the Congress at Philadelphia, but in the interrelations of
the fourteen armies and the fourteen deliberative bodies there was
an intricate lack of definition and uniformity. The congresses had
an acknowledged power over the military which made them the
resort of the discontented, but their own jealous factions and their
extreme reluctance to play the unpopular role of strong executive
authority, made the power a weak and capricious matter at best.
The adolescent republic was suffering from an overdose of liberty.
Politics, to which Gates and Arnold and innumerable others turned
for the advancement of their fortunes, was a gamble and a dangerous
game.

To Congress, Arnold displayed the pose which he maintained in
everything throughout the war. He was the patriot, swift, fearless,
br illiant , but he was also a gentleman of a delicate sense of honor.
Encouraged and respected, he would be a terrible scourge against
the enemies of his country, but any slight, any interference which
reflected on his integrity, might drive him from the service. His
plunging energy and courage made him the patriot, his intol-
erance of meddling made him the man of honor. It was the fierce
independence that made a subordinate command unbearable.

Congress, on the other hand, had no regard for points of honor
nor hesitation in doubting the motives of an officer. Arnold was
too much on the defensive to hope to win a faction of his own, as
Gates was doing. The best that he could do was to hold off com-
plaints by complaining and flourish the threat of resignation. To
further his cause, he had the friendship and respect of Washington,
Schuyler and Gates, but his record, commendable as it was, lacked
the brilliance of victory. Every one' had expected Quebec to fall and
Carleton’s fleet to be repulsed. The difficulties were not clear from
a distance. He was thought of as fiery and impetuous but without

BENEDICT ARNOLD

i34

discretion, and the tales of Brown and Easton, the stories of the
sack of Montreal, increased the distrust.

Early in November, Carleton withdrew from Crown Point.
Wayne was left in command at Ticonderoga, while Gates and
Arnold went south to see what Fortune might hold in store for
them. They were friends, but not allies. Gates also distrusted Ar-
nold’s temerity, and no doubt realized that he could not depend
on the allegiance of this far-seeking adventurer. The two were
intimate, however, and might have made a powerful team in work-
ing together for the public favor, for Arnold had the dash and
glitter of a fighting warrior which Gates lacked and which, could
the spectacled little schemer have been assured of its subservience,
would have gready forwarded his career. With a body of troops
withdrawn from the garrison, they joined Schuyler at his house
at Saratoga and with him marched to headquarters at Albany.

There they tarried for a short space, and there took place one of
the many mysterious occurrences of a mysterious career to the
perplexity and confusion of historians. Benedict Arnold refused an
invitation to fight. To deepen the puzzle, it was the infuriated
warrior-attorney, John Brown, who offered this opportunity. Brown
was still playing the part of Nemesis, and Arnold, after the manner
of military men toward such a pursuit, regarded it with a sneering
contempt. Since that inconvenient haze of suspicion had been at-
tached to their names, Brown and his fellow sufferer, James Easton,
had been to every general in the department, and at last to Congress,
pleading for a court of inquiry and obtaining only denial or delay.
Both had been to Philadelphia at different times: Easton only to be
jailed for debt, and Brown finally to wring from the Congressional
Board of War a promise of promotion as soon as a court of inquiry
reported in their favor. Gates was to summon the court, and Gates,
still Arnold’s friend and protector, referred the matter back to the
Board of War.

Thus, when chance brought these old enemies together at Al-
bany, Brown was in a very sour temper indeed. So had his wrongs

THE FIRE-EATER WOOS A LADY 135

rankled in him that his cause was utterly ruined by complaints
exaggerated to absurdity. That he should be impeded by a ground-
less charge, while his enemy throve under a similar suspicion based
on the seizures at Montreal, racked him. His tortured imagination
created a theory that Arnold had offered his services to the crown
after his expulsion from Ticonderoga in ’seventy-five. Now, to the
lively interest of headquarters society, he published a handbill,
rehearsing in vehement denunciation all the outrages that could be
attributed to Brigadier-General Arnold, and concluding with the
crowning inference, “Money is this man’s God, and to get enough of
it he would sacrifice his country.”

The paper was boldly read aloud at the mess over which Arnold
presided, some of the members of which did not count themselves
among his friends. The fire-eater sat at the head of the table, his
brows down and his cheeks scarlet with fury. When the reading
was done, his comments were coarse and harsh. They were capped
with the statements that Lieutenant-Colonel Brown, as he called
himself, was a rascal, and that he would kick him at the first
opportunity. An officer remarked that since these reflections had
been publicly made, there would be no objection to their being re-
peated to Colonel Brown. Arnold replied that he would feel
obliged to any gentleman who would make known to Colonel
Brown his sentiments on the subject of the handbill and its
author.

On the following evening, with the cloth laid and the busding
servant girls spreading the dinner upon it under the tall candles,
the blue-coated officers chatting together by the firelight in a
glitter of buttons and sword hilts, Brown entered. He looked quickly
over the room. Directly opposite, with the table between them,
Arnold stood, his back to the fire, glaring contemptuously. The
conversation died away. The lean, sallow officer walked with des-
perate calmness around the table, faced his enemy and spoke.

“I understand, sir, that you have said you would kick me. I
now present myself to give you an opportunity to put your threat

i 3 6 BENEDICT ARNOLD

into execution.” Arnold’s disdainful silence encouraged him. “Sir,
you are a dirty scoundrel.” Still the glowering face was silent, and
Brown, with a brief apology to the spectators, left the room.

A theory was evolved when popular clamor was against him, that
Arnold was a coward, primed by liquor to deeds of reckless daring,
and this incident was used to uphold it. But, granting that the ac-
count, coming from a partisan, is correct, there are other explana-
tions for Arnold’s silence than that he was sober. Sober, indeed, he
must have been at that hour, and in better control of his temper
than when he had made the threat, at which time, the usual liquid
conclusion of the repast, he may have been, as the gentlemen
of that day phrased it, “a trifle elevated.” It would have been utterly
inconsistent with his station and dignity to have seized and kicked
Brown, according to his promise. To have done so would have
injured his career with a flood of scandal and ridicule. And it would
have been almost as dangerous to have met the insult with a chal-
lenge, for Brown had none of Arnold’s skill with the pistol and the
northern winter had so injured his eyesight that he had been for a
time blind and was still declared unfit for active duty. Arnold,
moreover, had offered the first insult and his reply had not been
a challenge. Brown was no longer a rival, and the public would have
been shocked had he been forced to his death on the field of honor.
A contemptuous silence met the situation.

“The latter gentleman,” General Schuyler once observed to
General Gates in kindly reference to their mutual friend, “will
always be the subject of complaint because his impartiality and
candor will not suffer him to see impropriety of conduct with im-
punity.” Brown’s next complaint was a document furiously over-
loaded with thirteen charges of misconduct. This was submitted to
Gates on the first of December. On the second, Brown wrote twice
to that officer, demanding to know what was going to be done about
it. Gates replied curtly that he would refer it to the Congress. And
after a lapse of some months, the Congress, very naturally, acquitted
General Arnold and censured his accuser. In this manner, the poor

THE FIRE-EATER WOOS A LADY 137

lawyer of Pittsfield was driven to resignation from the Continental
service. He continued in the field, however, at the head of a regiment
of militia., still hurling ever more bitter invective against his tor-
mentor.

Colonel Moses Hazen was also at Albany, where he had come
on the business of settling his accounts for the last campaign. This
was complicated by General Arnold’s inability “to see impropriety
of conduct with impunity,” and he was assailed with evidence of
having embezzled military stores in Canada. Hazen, however, was
promptly exonerated by a court of inquiry held on December second.

Shortly after, at the head of four regiments, Gates marched for
the south, taking with him his stormy protege. He was eager to
present himself at Philadelphia, and he had already written to
Congress, praising the zeal and abilities of General Arnold, who was
also desirous of proceeding thither. Arnold’s desire was a natural
one, for his public accounts, since the march to Quebec, had never
been audited and settled and considerable sums must have been due
him for his services and expenses. To be introduced by the influen-
tial General Gates, moreover, would make the matter an easier one.
Schuyler prayed Congress to hurry the business, as he needed
Arnold in the north. But Washington postponed the hopes of both
by ordering his hot-blooded little adventurer to a new field of
action.

The Commander-in-chief had been a trifle annoyed, and not
for the first or the last time, by Gates’ neglect to inform him of his
movements. He had come about half the distance from Albany to
the bivouac in New Jersey when Washington learned of his where-
abouts. On the seventeenth of December, the little force reached
Bethlehem, to be met by a courier with the news that a British
army was moving up the Sound from New York, apparently intend-
ing a descent upon some part of New England, and with orders
for General Arnold to proceed at once to New London or whatever
point might be their objective, and place himself under Major-
General Joseph Spencer, at the head of such forces as they could

138 BENEDICT ARNOLD

muster. General Gates was to hurry forward with the detachment
under his command.

Gates replied on behalf of his friend. General Arnold, he wrote,
has information which he thinks — and which, indeed, was — authen-
tic, that the enemy had landed at Rhode Island. He also believes that
there are sufficient troops in that quarter to oppose any aggression.
It would seem best, therefore, for General Arnold to consult in per-
son with the Commander-in-chief before his departure. Arnold
continued, and another day’s march brought them into the camp
by the Delaware. Washington, now planning the attack of Christ-
mas night, with his army dwindling and Philadelphia threatened,
did not alter his opinion, and Arnold left on the twenty-second,
three days before Trenton, for New England.

Thus was severed a budding partnership. Arnold went north
again, to love and battle. Gates repaired to the capital city, where
he delicately reminded the delegates of his accomplishments, and
refused to resume his old place in the army, observing with modest
satisfaction, “I had last year . . . the good fortune to prevent the
enemy from making their so much wished for junction with General
Howe. After this, to be expected to dwindle again to the adjutant-
general . .

Fortunately, the other hero was absent.

II. The Heavenly Miss De Blots.

The expedition which Sir William Howe had dispatched against
New England sailed from New York on the first of December
under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Clinton, an
officer with whom, in time, Arnold was to have dealings of a more
subtle nature. Howe was of the opinion that the war could be
ended in a year by three decisive thrusts, one against Philadelphia
and ultimately the South, one up the Hudson to Albany, and this,
whose successive objectives were to be Newport, Providence and
Boston. The transports carried more than six thousand British

THE FIRE-EATER WOOS A LADY 139

and Hessian troops, who, a week after their departure, landed and
took possession of Newport without opposition. On the twelfth
of January Arnold arrived at Providence to find the militia already
mustering under General Spencer.

Not long after the fire-eater’s arrival, there began to take shape
in the rebel headquarters a plan of attack. It is needless to doubt
that the plan was Arnold’s. His, certainly, was the energy behind it.
General Spencer was not the man to elaborate, with the small forces
under his command, on his instructions, which were for a defensive
campaign. He was sixty-three years of age at the time, a veteran of
the French and Indian wars, a magistrate and assemblyman, an
earnest Christian and an officer extremely sensitive on considerations
of rank. He had already left the army in an informal manner, dis-
gusted because General Putnam had been made his superior, and
it was not until Congress, four months earlier, had created him
Major-General that he returned. As old women, in this day, pre-
sided at the bed of childbirth, so it was the custom among military
men to ascribe such an obstetrical function to officers deemed lacking
in courage and spirit. The word “midwife,” however, was generally
avoided for a colloquial and less professional term. It is said that
General Spencer, emerging from his quarters one morning, had the
misfortune to find the following critical ditty pinned to his doorpost.
Undoubtedly, a crowd of the curious had gathered to watch his face
as he read it.

“Israel wanted bread,

The Lord sent them manna;
Rhode Island wants a head,
And Congress sends — a granny.”

Thenceforward, he was “Granny Spencer” to the people of Rhode
Island. But this happened when Arnold was no longer on the scene.

The attack was brought into the range of possibility when the
invaders, having no intention of penetrating farther into the country
at that season, withdrew two thousand men to New York. This

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BENEDICT ARNOLD

left the two armies of about equal size. But on one side there were
war-hardened grenadiers and Hessians, and on the other a mob of
veteran plowmen and red-cheeked farmer lads, most of whom had
never been in action or even seen a redcoat before. Arnold strove
desperately to obtain four or five regiments of Continentals as the
nucleus for a fighting force. He wrote enthusiastically to Washing-
ton, enclosing maps and an oudine of the proposed assault, and
Washington replied, conceding the advantages of the project
should it succeed, but pointing to the disastrous consequences of a
failure and declaring it inadvisable unless success appeared a cer-
tainty. He could not promise a reinforcement of Continentals im-
mediately. Arnold turned at once to the hope of drawing troops
from winterquarters in one of the neighboring states. Massachu-
setts had the most formidable reserve, and, as Boston was threatened,
should be willing to join the enterprise. Spencer had already been
to Boston, early in February, while Arnold was constructing boats
for an attack by water. The fire-eater now determined to go himself.
Early in March he rode into the little city and looked it over. One
fifty-gun ship, he commented, might take, plunder and burn the
town. The citizens displeased him: “the only contest they seem to
have is with the Farmers abt. Eggs, Butter &c.” He conferred with
legislators and warriors, he dined with the leading people, and, with
that plump little eighteenth-century Cupid performing miracles
of archery overhead, he made the acquaintance of Miss Elizabeth
De Blois.

As a lover, with honorable intentions, the adventurer was dis-
tressingly methodical. His appeal was founded on a desire to accord
with the strictest rules of custom and propriety in such matters,
and not on any acquaintance with the character of the young lady
herself. The young lady was sixteen years of age, her warlike lover
thirty-six. She had the charms of beauty, gayety and riches, and had
all the popularity that follows them. John Quincy Adams, always
a careful observer of ladies, met her at a dinner party, more than
a decade later. “Miss Deblois,” he confided to his diary, “has been

THE FIRE-EATER WOOS A LADY 141

much celebrated as a beauty; and she may still be called very hand-
some, though she be as much as twenty-seven.” John Quincy was
then in his twenty-first year. “She is sociable and agreeable, though
she is not yet destitute of that kind of vanity which is so naturally
the companion of beauty. She puckers her mouth a little, and con-
tracts her eyelids a litde, to look very pretty; and is not wholly
unsuccessful.”

On March the seventh General Arnold indited a note to Colonel
Paul Revere, begging as a favor that he apply to Mr. Austin for a
sword knot and sash, “two best appalits” and a dozen silk hose.
Powdered and smiling, his Continental buff and blue a-glitter with
the accouterments of war. General Arnold began the siege with a
formidable display of power. His first active maneuver was a bom-
bardment of expensive presents.

“I have taken the liberty,” he wrote in an engaging letter, quite unlike
his usual direct style, addressed to the wife of General Knox, a Boston lady,
“of enclosing a letter to the heavenly Miss Deblois, which I beg the favor
of your delivering with the trunk of gowns , etc., which Mrs. prom-

ised me to send to you, I hope she will make no objection to receiving them.
I make no doubt you will soon have the pleasure to see the charming Mrs.
Emery and have it in your power to give the favorable intelligence. I shall
remain under the most anxious suspense,” he concluded, no doubt in the
assurance that the ardent phrases would be repeated, “for the favor of a Line
from you, who, if I may judge, will from your own experience consider the
fond anxiety, the glowing hopes, and the chilling fears that alternately possess
the heart of, dear Madam,

“Your obedient and humble servant,

“Benedict Arnold.”

As the proposed attack on Rhode Island languished for want of
support from Massachusetts, which only agreed to the sending of
troops some months later, and showed no evidence of being moved
by General Arnold’s ambitious appeals, so the operations against
the heart of Miss Betsy lacked the needed forces. “Miss Deblois,”
General Knox’s lady confided to her husband a month later, “has

BENEDICT ARNOLD

142

positively refused to listen to the general, which, with his other
mortification, will come very hard upon him.” Hope was not so
readily abandoned, but both projects were rudely interrupted when
the blundering indifference of Congress cast a shadow upon the
honor of Benedict Arnold. This must be removed before he could
renew the pursuit of either.

On the third of March Washington had dispatched another let-
ter to Arnold, urging a temperate viewpoint. “Unless your strength
and circumstances be such that you can reasonably promise yourself
a moral certainty of succeeding,” he cautioned him with regard to
the Rhode Island proposal, “I would have you by all means relin-
quish the undertaking and confine yourself, in the main, to a de-
fensive operation. We have lately had,” he went on, “several promo-
tions to the rank of major-general, and I am at a loss whether you
have a preceding appointment, as the newspapers announce, or
whether you have been omitted through some mistake. Should the
latter be the case, I beg you will not take any hasty steps in conse-
quence of it, but allow proper time for recollection, which I flatter
myself will remedy any error that may have been made. My en-
deavors to that end shall not be wanting.”

In February, Congress, with the loyal Silas Deane now absent on
a mission to France, had elected five new major-generals, Lord
Stirling, Mifflin, St. Clair, Stephens and Lincoln. Of Arnold, who
formerly outranked them all, and should have headed the list, there
was no mention. To his late friend and patron of Ticonderoga, the
aggrieved brigadier wrote in somber, appealing anger. Ease, in-
terests, happiness had been sacrificed. He quoted some vindictive
Gothic cadences, the address of Araster to his sons.

“I know some Villain has been busy with my Fame — & basely slandered
me.

But who will not rest in safety that has done me wrong.

By Heavens, I will have Justice
And I’m a Villain if I seek not
A Brave Revenge for injured honour.”

THE FIRE-EATER WOOS A LADY 143

Gates had been in Philadelphia at the time, writing letters about
Washington and Schuyler, putting himself forward in one way
and another, but if he showed any interest in Arnold’s cause, he had
not sufficient influence to serve it.

The Commander-in-chief, on the other hand, valued Arnold’s
services more highly. The poverty of Congress and the activity of
the enemy allowed scant opportunity to build up a hardened mili-
tary organization, and the only thing which could effectively re-
place it was the brilliant, pugnacious leadership that Arnold offered.
To Washington the fire-eater replied with grateful formality.

“Congress,” he observed, “undoubtedly have a right of promot-
ing those whom, from their abilities, and their long and arduous
services, they esteem most deserving. Their promoting junior officers
to the rank of major-generals, I view as a very civil way of request-
ing my resignation, as unqualified for the office I hold. My com-
mission was conferred unsolicited, and received with pleasure only
as a means of serving my country. With equal pleasure I resign it,
when I can no longer serve my country with honor. The person
who, void of the nice feelings of honor, will tamely condescend
to give up his right, and retain a commission at the expense of his
reputation, I hold as a disgrace to the army, and unworthy of the
glorious cause in which we are engaged. When I entered the service
of my country my character was unimpeached. I have sacrificed my
ease, interest and happiness in her cause. It is rather a misfortune
than a fault that my exertions have not been crowned with success.
I am conscious of the rectitude of my intentions.”

He would not, he avowed, be guilty of any hasty step, but de-
manded a court of inquiry into his conduct. The letter was well
penned. He was not anxious to resign, but he would not submit
to a situation of this sort. Situations of this sort were only too com-
mon in the army, and were the cause of wrangling, complaints and
threats from all ranks of officers. Congress had but a casual regard
for military etiquette and ethics. The members considered the
rights of their states first. And Washington, after some inquiry,

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BENEDICT ARNOLD

found that such a jealousy underlay the neglect of Arnold. Con-
necticut had already two major-generals and it was declared that
this was her full share. A court of inquiry, as Washington pointed
out, was impossible, as there was no charge into which to inquire.

The threat of resignation, for which much blame has been set
upon Arnold, was continually employed in the war and was not
considered dishonorable. It was the only hold of the soldier on the
statesman. Such officers as Greene, Knox and Sullivan, and even
Washington, had used it. “For my part,” the steady, soldierly
Greene had once declared, “I would never give any legislative body
an opportunity to humiliate me but once.” But Arnold had no in-
tention of subsiding, tamely, and without the reason why. When
April brought warmer days and better roads, he set out for Phila-
delphia.

111. A Brave Revenge.

“A brave revenge for injured honor,” the fire-eater had prom-
ised. Without cause, his reputation as a soldier had been tarnished,
his honor as a gentleman, his prespects as a lover. The effect upon
his disposition can be imagined. But fortunately, before he pre-
sented himself at Congress, an opportunity was offered for him to
spend a little of the violence of his temper. The opportunitty was
offered by William Tryon, His Majesty’s royal Governor of New
York. This gentleman had a grudge of his own, for the war had
put an end to a lucrative business in land which he had combined
with his official duties. He vented his dislike for the Americans
as commander of a number of raiding expeditions, in which he
displayed a taste for destruction, and probably did more than any
other of the King’s commanders to destroy the possibility of recon-
ciliation.

While Arnold was tarrying at New Haven with Hannah and
the three healthy, noisy boys, a fleet of twenty-three transports,
convoyed by the ship Eagle and two sloops-of-war, appeared off

THE FIRE-EATER WOOS A LADY 145

Compo Hill, near Fairfield, some twenty miles to the west. From
these, on the twenty-fifth day of April, Governor William Tryon
landed two thousand men, and marched them hastily northward.
His objective was the rebel supply base at Danbury, a score of miles
through country that would be none too friendly to his coming.

In Fairfield Brigadier-General Gold Silliman of the Connecti-
cut militia was steering his plow in the furrow, plodding sturdily,
gripping the plow handles to force an even cut in the rocky soil,
when a courier dashed into the field with the news. Soon riders were
galloping from farm to farm, the little white churches were ringing
their bells, and the militiamen were taking down their long guns,
slinging powder horn and canteen from their shoulders, bidding
the womenfolks farewell, waving in answer to the “God bless
ye’s” as they passed in hurried groups along the highway.

Tryon’s two thousand advanced at a steady pace, his Tory regi-
ments jeering exultantly at the people who came to watch them as
they trudged by. In the early afternoon of the twenty-sixth, he
reached Danbury. The village had not been warned until he was
within eight miles and there had been no time to remove the stores.
Disorders began when a few youths, inflamed either by patriotism
or drink, a point which historians have been unable to determine,
opened fire from a house. House and its garrison were burned to-
gether by the infuriated invaders. In the next few hours, some five
thousand barrels of beef and pork were destroyed, with larg$
quantities of cloth, destined for uniforms and tents. Three hun-
dred puncheons of rum and fifty pipes of wine were poured out,
chiefly down the throats of the victors, who passed the night in
jubilant carousing, mere soldiers no longer, but furious heroes and
eminent good fellows, shouting and singing through the darkness
all night long.

To Redding, twelve miles southward, Silliman had come with
five hundred men and boys, in hard pursuit. It was raw and rainy
weather. Shortly after night, a group of horsemen dashed in, with
a splattering of mud and a shouting for news. At their head rode

BENEDICT ARNOLD

146

two old acquaintances. Generals Wooster and Arnold. Both now
had injured honor to vindicate, for Wooster, after his removal
from the command in Canada, had returned in high dudgeon
and demanded a court of inquiry. He could not very well be
condemned for senility, and Congress declared him exonerated,
couching the resolve in such terms as to confer all the blame for
the Canadian disaster upon Schuyler. But they had offered the old
general no command, and he still felt that he was distrusted. Now
a crowd of mili tiamen gathered to gape at the famous leaders, lan-
terns glistening through the rain on their wet faces.

The enemy was at Danbury. It was Arnold’s first news of their
position, and so enraged was he to hear it, that he could hardly keep
his saddle for impatience, so we are told, while his great curses
fell among the startled lads beneath him, “like thunder claps.”
Wooster, senior officer, assumed command, and the weary column
pushed onward, through blackness, mud and drenching rain. Near
mi dnigh t, they camped at Bethel, three miles from the jovial scenes
of the Governor’s triumph.

Morning dawned with cold showers still washing over the
country from a leaden sky. Over Danbury, where Tryon was burn-
ing the rebel houses, a haze of dark smoke crept into the air. This
done, he marched for his ships, taking a new road, to the westward,
in order to avoid the pursuing force. The pursuers, now but little
more than seven hundred strong, could hope for nothing from a
pitched battle with two thousand men, with artillery. After a
hasty consultation, Wooster set out with some three hundred men
to harry the enemy’s rear, while Arnold and Silliman, with four
hundred, marched as swiftly to take a stand in front.

Through a heavy mist that clung to the earth, Wooster came
within shot of the enemy at about eight o’clock, deployed his men,
and brought them at a run through the wet grass, over slippery
rocks and under the dripping pines. He took the sentries by sur-
prise and broke into the camp where the redcoats were gathering
round their kettles for a hot breakfast, gave them a volley, and fell

THE FIRE-EATER WOOS A LADY 147

back as quickly as he had come, with about forty prisoners. Three
hours later, his troops, most of whom were new to the business, but
heartened by their first success and the fact that Tryon was re-
treating before them attacked again. This time they were expected.
A crackle of musketry met the advancing line, a broken bellowing
of cann on as the grapeshot screamed through their ranks. The line
wavered. Wooster riding ahead, shouted to attack. It was an old
man ’s gallant and tragic plea for an honorable name before his
country. He turned in the saddle and waved his sword.

“Come on, my boys!” he called. “Never mind such random
shots!”

He clutched a hand to his side as the blade flew into the air and
he slumped to the ground. He was carried hastily to the rear, the
line falling back with its general, pursued only by repeated volleys
of lead and iron. A surgeon dressed his wound. The long crimson
sash he had worn over his shoulder was unrolled and wrapped
about him, and he was carried to a farmhouse in Danbury, whisper-
ing sadly through his pain. Arnold, by a forced march, reached the
road to the sea at Ridgefield at about eleven o’clock, and imme-
diately placed his men across it. In its southward course, the road
surmounted a line of hills, upon which it would be difficult to at-
tack an enemy. But if, by a show of greater force than he possessed,
he could divert Tryon into a more circuitous route through the val-
leys, he could harry his march, as Gage’s regiments had been harried
back from Concord, and perhaps cut him to pieces before he reached
the shore.

Arnold, with two hundred men, took a position between a ledge
of rocks on his left and the farmhouse where old Benjamin Steb-
bins, a cripple and a Tory, lay on the floor in a well founded fear for
his life. His militiamen, heartened by the dull roar of Wooster’s
last fight, a mile to the north of them, and by the resolute enthusi-
asm of their commander, worked with speed and care on the barri-
cade of logs and carts and earth that was to shelter them from the
oncoming storm. Silliman with the other two hundred of their force.

148

BENEDICT ARNOLD

was to protect the flanks of this position. The rain had ceased to fall,
and low-flying clouds rolled in swift masses across the sky.

Tryon’s rapid pace soon brought him to this new obstacle. He
at once attacked in front. The bullets whistled by and the round shot
sent the mud and splinters flying. To this the defenders replied
with great spirit, firing quickly, dodging back to reload, the
wounded dragging themselves into the Stebbins’ house. Orders could
not be heard through the din, but Arnold, holding his nervous horse
in check with a strong wrist, rode back and forth behind the line,
watching the work.

Tryon’s natural maneuver was to throw out flanking parties,
and in this attempt he was successful. A platoon of his infantry
appeared suddenly on the ledge of rocks, delivered their fire and
charged with the bayonet. The Americans instandy took to their
heels. The mounted officer, scarce thirty yards away, was a conspicu-
ous target, and his horse rolled to the earth, nine balls through its
body. Arnold was struggling to free himself from the trembling
carcass. A soldier, plunging toward him with outstretched bayonet,
shouted a hoarse warning to surrender. The man was a Tory, well
known in that country. The fire-eater shot and killed him. In a
moment he was on his feet, emptied the other pistol, and threw
them both away as he ran desperately for a wooded swamp across
the clearing, bounding over hillocks and crumpled bodies, the
bullets whining around him, leaping a rail fence and diving into
the shelter of the trees. There he paused for breath, and a small
group gathered to him.

“One live man is worth ten dead ones,” he remarked, descend-
ing to philosophy, as even the man of action is apt to do in a time
of defeat. He ordered all the men he could find to rendezvous at
Saugatuck Bridge, near the seacoast, and hastened south to prepare
for a new stand.

Down the long street of Ridgefield, dotted with houses and over-
hung by elm, maple and sycamore, Tryon advanced in the thunder
of his cannon. A few Americans made a stand in the old Keeler

THE FIRE-EATER WOOS A LADY 149

tavern, sniping gallantly from windows while the iron shot roared
through the walls with a crashing of splintered timber and falling
chin a, filling the rooms with plaster dust. With the village behind
them under a pall of smoke, the raiders camped for the night.

It is easy for one who follows the profession of arms to acquire
a reputation for ruthlessness and cruelty. It is a ruthless profession, in
which chivalry and efficiency do not always accord. In rebellious
America, war hatred was growing ever more bitter, and tales of
atrocity grew fat upon it. In rebellious America, some gentleness at
the expense of military advantages might have aided the royal
cause. Sir Guy Carleton, alone of the King’s generals, realized this,
Tryon followed a course of brutal thoroughness, as Arnold did later
when he was raiding rebel bases of supply. Tryon was now wise
enough not to underestimate his enemy. At daybreak, he resumed
his march to the sea.

At nine o’clock of that morning, Arnold and Silliman were
waiting at Saugatuck Bridge with five hundred men. They had now
a small but determined regiment of artillery, a most valuable addi-
tion to their force. This body was commanded by two old friends
of the fire-eater, lately prisoners at Quebec, but exchanged, thanks
partly to his recommendations. Colonel John Lamb and Lieu-
tenant-Colonel Eleazer Oswald. Lamb had been struck in the face
by a cannon ball at the storming of the Lower Town, had recovered
by a miracle, and had succeeded in provoking the annoyance of his
captors by a continual overflow of imprecations and ill-wishes
against the servants and royal person of His Majesty. Arnold had
clinched their friendship by the loan of a thousand pounds toward
the raising of his regiment. He now returned to the field, as alert
and venomous as ever, his countenance not greatly improved by an
enormous scar and one dead eye.

Tryon, to avoid the trap, forded the Saugatuck above the bridge.
Arnold sent S illim an north to join a large body of militia who were
ann oying the enemy as best they could, with orders to attack their
rear, while he himself marched to strike them in the flank. Tryon,

BENEDICT ARNOLD

150

however, moved so swiftly, keeping his men for a large part of the
way on the run, that Silliman was unable to overtake him. The
forces were united again and again the Americans attacked. Some
two hours of broken skirmishing ensued, the heavy British forma-
tions fighting through at last to Compo Hill.

There the chase grew hot again, thanks to a score or more of
eager Yankees who, without orders or officers, chose a propitious
opening, and made bold to storm the Hill. Arnold and Lamb at
once hurled themselves and a small array into the fight in support
of this extemporaneous maneuver. They swept up the hill, met
the retreating strategists, and turned them back for a brief, forlorn
renewal of the attack. The rebel cannon were silent, the men
were moving down again. Lamb was slightly wounded, and Arnold,
dismounting, half lifted him into his saddle, held him there as he
slumped into unconsciousness. Back, down the hill, crept the little
line of battle, through the smoke of a scattered fire. Arnold, striding
by the horse’s side, clinging to the bridle and the limp body on the
saddle, pleaded with the men to turn back and fight. But marines
were landing to cover the embarkation; the Danbury raid was over.

The American resistance had been a series of hot skirmishes. In
them Arnold won glory and the undeserved credit of a victory. He
is still the hero who drove Tryon to his ships. A ball had pierced his
coat collar, two horses had been shot under him, he had played a
gallant part, and he had certainly hurried the Governor’s exit. But
his object had been to hold the British back and to cut them to
pieces, and in this he had failed.

Both sides, however, received their shares of boast and sorrow.
Tryon and Arnold, the two disgruntled men of battle, went one to
New York and one to Philadelphia, each to receive the acclaim due
to a glorious achievement. Gray-haired Mary Wooster rode up from
New Haven to her husband’s bedside, to answer his delirious
murmur ings and watch him die. Gold Silliman jogged back to
Fairfield, to chat about it with his neighbors and finish the plowing.

CHAPTER IX

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA
I. A Call to Battle on the Old Warpath.

“The Rebels lost two of their Generals, Wooster and Silliman,”
a correspondent in America informed the Earl of Dartmouth with
pardonable exaggeration; “and their famous Arnold had a very
narrow escape.” Their famous Arnold had caught the interest of
Englishmen. His march through the forest, his bold assault on
Quebec, his reckless daring, his furious resistance against odds to
which a more conservative commander would have submitted,
made his name as familiar to them as that of Washington. From
the printshop windows, large-eyed and ferocious of countenance,
sashed and much be-braided and buttoned, he stood in military
pose staring sternly into the streets of London. It was the admira-
tion which one can feel for the plucky but unsuccessful enemy.

Among the revolutionists, however, enmity and distrust survived
the wave of enthusiasm which followed the Ridgefield fights.
There were still disagreeable charges and rumors abroad, and there
were those who could reason that the reckless hurling of four or five
hundred men against two thousand implied a willingness to sacri-
fice painfully acquired armies for mere personal glory. Congress
responded by conferring the rank of Major-General and a fittingly
caparisoned charger to the officer who had had two horses shot
under him so gallantly resisting the enemy. The new commission,
however, was not antedated: Major-General Arnold was still out-
ranked by the five who had been promoted over him.

“General Arnold’s promotion,” Washington wrote to the Presi-
dent of Congress, “gives me much pleasure, he has certainly dis-

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152

covered, in every instance where he has had an opportunity, much
bravery, activity and enterprise. But what will be done about his
rank? He will not act most probably under those he commanded but
a few weeks ago.” Hoping for a speedy settlement of this small mat-
ter, he was arranging for Arnold to take command at Peekskill. It
was uncertain whether Howe’s next campaign would be directed
against Philadelphia or the forts on the Hudson, and Arnold’s
knowledge of water craft and ability in handling militia com-
mended him to the position at the forts. On the twelfth of May,
however, Arnold arrived at the headquarters in New Jersey, and
made clear his desire to present his accounts to Congress, to de-
mand an investigation of the charges against him and to demand the
rank due his seniority. On that day Washington wrote to Phila-
delphia, paving the way for his coming.

A name scented with powder smoke, the man whose wild ad-
ventures added the thrill of glory to defeat, in his uniform of buff
and blue, his scarlet sash and shining epaulettes, this stocky, florid-
faced war-hawk rode into the little Quaker town.

The little red city was just learning the dignity and cultivated
habits that belong to the metropolis and capital of an empire.
There were those who could appreciate the manners and formalities
of a sophisticated gentleman at arms. There were those who would
glare and sniff at his airs and aloofness, condemn them as incom-
patible with the Roman spirit of free America, and as, very prob-
ably, a hypocritical covering for base designs. At the moment, how-
ever, General Arnold was the object for cheerful attentions. Ru-
mors of a British plot for his assassination increased the interest. He
addressed himself to Congress.

“I am exceedingly unhappy to find that after having made
every sacrifice of fortune, ease and domestic happiness, to serve my
country, I am publicly impeached (in particular by Lieutenant-
Colonel Brown,) of a catalogue of crimes, which, if true, ought to
subject me to disgrace, infamy and the just resentment of my
countrymen. Consciousness of the rectitude of my intentions,” —

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA 153

that favorite phrase — “however I may have erred in judgement, I
must request the favor of Congress to point out some mode by which
my conduct, and that of my accusers, may be inquired into, and
justice done to the innocent and injured.”

The innocent and injured, after an examination into the charges
by the Board of War, was completely vindicated, an inevitable de-
cision, considering how the complaints had been exaggerated by
exasperation, how meager the evidence now was, and how diffi-
cult it is to condemn a valuable officer in war time. The more com-
plex matter of the accounts was referred to a committee of Congress.
But in the delicate consideration of rating, the legislators were not
sympathetic. They were weary of these endless, incomprehensible
demands, these officers who came fuming up from the training
ground or back from the battle front, as John Adams phrased it,
“scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.”

In these scenes of Congressional appeal, Arnold had not the cen-
ter of the stage. That part was held by the big-mouthed little
schemer, Horatio Gates, with, playing opposite to him, Philip Schuy-
ler, the tall and staid aristocrat of the Hudson valley. Gates, busy
among the New England delegates especially, had in March re-
ceived the independent command of Ticonderoga, which, as that
post was the danger point of the Northern Department, amounted
to the superseding of Schuyler. Efforts were made to insult Schuyler
into r esigning . In April Gates went to Albany where he felt that
he could keep an eye on both Ticonderoga and the Congress, while
Schuyler, justly outraged at this manner of conducting affairs,
arrived at Philadelphia to demand an inquiry. Congress, aroused
to a realization of what the Gates faction had put through, pro-
vided Schuyler with a definition of his department and an assertion
• of his authority in it. Schuyler, satisfied, went north. Gates, in a
fury, cam e south, appeared before Congress on a pretense of im-
portant news, and made himself ridiculous in an awkward effort
to recount his own merits as a general.

The effect of all this on Arnold must be inferred. From the first

i54

BENEDICT ARNOLD

expedition to Ticonderoga until this time, he had looked to Con-
gress as a body which would appreciate his accomplishments and to
which he might safely appeal. It was now clear that he would
never be supported from this quarter. It was the mutual distrust
of civil and military authorities that underlay the trouble. Even
sectionalism did not help him: “Your. best friends,” as Samuel
Chase, referring to the scandal of the Montreal seizures, had in-
formed him, “are not your countrymen.” He must become a fol-
lower of Gates, or he must rely on the friendship of Washington
and Schuyler. And it was on the friendship of Washington and
Schuyler, who asked no personal allegiance, who had spoken so
much of his value as an officer, and done so much to aid his career,
that he tended more and more to place his reliance.

But Congress was not blind to his military value, and in that
summer, when Howe’s army threatened an incursion across New
Jersey to Philadelphia, ordered him to Trenton to take command
of the militia. The militiamen thronged to his standard. He, watch-
ing the movements of the enemy with hawklike eagerness for
battle, waited the moment to strike, “for fight them we must,” he
declared, “when all our reinforcements are in; we cannot avoid it
with honor.” When, however, the enemy withdrew, he returned
to Philadelphia, there to urge again the cause of honor.

At this time, in the Northern Department, a British spy sought
the clemency of his captors by giving to them their first news of
the expedition, under Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne, moving
to invade again the lake passage, storm Ticonderoga, march down
the Hudson and unite with Howe. Schuyler, realizing that valu-
able time had been lost in the wrangles over precedence, began to
make ready his resistance. As other reports confirmed the first,
he still felt confident. Ticonderoga he was sure could be held, but
should a part of the invasion come down the Mohawk valley, it
would find Fort Schuyler unfinished and poorly garrisoned, and
the valley full of Tories to add strength to its advance.

Early in July, in the midst of his hurried preparations, came

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA 155

the news that Ticonderoga had been abandoned by its defenders
and occupied by the enemy. A wave of fear and indignation swept
through rebellious America. The militia he had been mustering
began to melt away. The Gates party in Congress came forward
for a new campaign, raising loudly the cry of incompetence and
treason.

Sugar Loaf Hill, rising in rocky majesty behind the fortress, had
been responsible for all this uproar and consternation. A young of-
ficer, a year earlier, had demonstrated to the incredulous Gates
that a battery on Sugar Loaf Hill could command the works. Now
the fact had been demonstrated again by a corps of British artillery.

Schuyler met the retreating garrison of three thousand men, too
small a number to have occupied Sugar Loaf had they been ordered
to do so, and made them the nucleus of a brave resistance. He
advanced dangerously near to the triumphant invaders, almost three
times his strength, and then fell back again, so obstructing the roads
as to make their advance a slow and tedious matter. The retreat
brought further opprobrium upon him, but it gave him the delay
he needed to build an army from militia levies. For a time, how-
ever, the chief of this able but distrusted officer’s many difficulties
was in keeping the militia he already had from going home to their
harvest fields. “If Job had been a general in my situation,” he had
moaned, “his memory had not been so famous for patience.” He
begged W ashin gton to send him generals popular with the New
Englan d troops, and Washington chose for him two officers well
fitted to the purpose, Benjamin Lincoln and Benedict Arnold.

It was on the tenth of July, the day that Arnold, as the last
maneuver in his campaign for rank and financial settlement, of-
fered his resignation to Congress, that the President of that unap-
preciative body received a letter from the Commander-in-chief,
hogging that General Arnold’s affairs be settled at once to his
satisfaction, as his services were needed to bring the militia into
action in the Northern Department. “He is active, judicious and
brave,” the letter ran, “and an officer in whom the militia will

BENEDICT ARNOLD

156

repose great confidence. Besides this, he is well acquainted with
that country, and with the routes and most important passes and
defiles in it. I am persuaded that his presence and activity will
animate the militia greatly and spur them on to a becoming con-
duct”

The militiamen were ready enough to turn out for a fight, but
they objected to campaigning. That the defense of Ticonderoga
in the priding year had offered nothing more exciting than chop-
ping and digging and garrison routine, thickened the problem of
interes ting them. Schuyler, for his gentlemanly aloofness, was dis-
trusted. But the name of Arnold promised battle, and if he showed
the same haughty gentility among his equals, he shared the hard-
ships of his men, watched over them with a lenient care, and, with
all his vigorous pugnacity, led them in person at the points of
danger. It is said that he once proved to them the soundness of
his Quebec leg by vaulting over a loaded ammunition wagon, a
feat not entirely consistent with the dignity of a major-general, but
well calculated to win the respect of his men. He could give to
these fluctuating, temperamental levies, something of order and
discipline, and fill them, in the presence of the enemy, with his
own proud fury.

And now the call to battle came clearly. He knew the pettiness
of his dispute with Congress. All his highest ambitions in the war
were threatened by the invader, advancing now in triumph down
the old warpath from the north. If Burgoyne succeeded, Canada
would be lost, and if he failed, the tide of American victory might
roll northward again in a new invasion. The fire-eater withdrew
his resignation, and declared himself willing, in the crisis, to lay
aside his claims. Washington, still threatened by Howe and in con-
sequence unable to reinforce Schuyler, was doing what he could
to bring out the militia. It was with pleasure that he informed
them that General Arnold was on his way to command them. “I
have no doubt you will, under his conduct and direction, repel an
enemy from your borders who, not content with bringing mer-

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA

*57

cenaries to lay waste your country, have now brought savages,
with the avowed and express intent of adding murder to desola-
tion.”

11. Fhe Fire-eater Conquers by a Ruse de Guerre.

The invading expedition to which the general felt free to
ascribe this bloodthirsty intention, was, on the contrary an affair
glittering with all the chivalry and nobility of purpose, all the
colorful, dashing, adventurous spirit of its commander. It was
imbued with ideals of martial justice and honor, that gallant en-
thusiasm which accompanies a confidence in success. Four thou-
sand English regulars marched with it, headed by the light in-
fantry, picked men, splendid scouts and skirmishers, and then the
tall, proud grenadiers, made taller by their high peaked caps of
bearskin, albeit shorn of some of their dignity when, in the scarcity
of cloth for patches, their coats had been altered to light infantry
style by the removal of the tails. Beside the ranks of red came the
blue, four hundred British artillerymen with a long train of guns,
and the Germans, more than three thousand strong, chasseurs,
grenadiers, artillery, and the poor dragoons, cursing the shortage
of horses as they clumped laboriously along in their great heavy
boots, sabers rattling at their sides and plumes nodding overhead.
Four hundred Indians daily smeared themselves with bear’s grease
and rubbed on the colored powders in grotesque designs, trimmed
their tufted scalp locks with feathers, and stole out in search of
blood and plunder. Three hundred shifdess habitants daily stalked
the woods on scouting duty, and quarreled by their camp fires as
to who should be officers. Behind, a long supply train creaked under
a weight rich in both comforts and necessities. It was a small but
well appointed army. Some thousand women and other noncom-
batant adjuncts, raised its numbers to about ten thousand.

To this vivid pageantry was added the brilliance of its officers,
old soldiers who loved their men, their profession and their country

158 ' BENEDICT ARNOLD

with one heart, boys with names that were to be famous in the long
wars that followed, members of Parliament, noblemen and sons of
noblemen, all sharing the confidence of the ranks in the courage-
ous and dashing cavalryman, their leader. Next in rank, Major-
General William Phillips commanded the artillery. It was he who
had placed the battery that took Ticonderoga. A skillful and active
officer, with all of Arnold’s pride and furious temper, Arnold was
to know him, in time, more intimately. Of the brigadiers, Simon
Fraser was most conspicuous for his bravery and services. The Earl
of Balcarres, twenty-three years of age, commanded the light in-
fantry, and Major John Acland, a rough, hard-drinking veteran of
thirty, the grenadiers. The Germans were led by perhaps the most
thoroughly capable officer in the army, Major-General the Baron
von Riedesel, with his hearty German friendliness, his plump figure
and his clear blue eyes.

The royal cause, however, suffered from conflicts of jealousy,
ambition and faction among officers and in the government behind,
similar to those which troubled the rebellion. The petulant b ungling
of Lord George Germaine, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for
the American Colonies, was a match for that of Congress. It was
partly the enmity between this nobleman and Sir Guy Carleton
that accounted for Carleton’s remaining in his northern domain,
while Burgoyne, an inferior officer, marched southward on the path
of glory. The Governor General was a Whig. His advance down
the lake passage in 1776, moreover, had brought complaints from
Sir William Howe, who, although Commander-in-chief in America,
was outranked by Carleton on the army list. Germaine had or-
dered Carleton back, but the letter failed to arrive in time. Now a
new delicacy arose. Sir William’s part in the march of the rein-
forcements from Canada was merely to push up the Hudson and
unite with them at Albany. If he had been reluctant to join forces
with a superior, he was even more so to unite with an inferior
officer who would absorb all the glory of the adventure. He saw
only one rebel army in the field, that under Washington hovering

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159

near Philadelphia, and he expected Burgoyne to have no trouble.
Perfectly well aware of what was expected of him, he took advan-
tage of Germaine’s neglect to send the positive orders and began
his glamorous but ineffective campaign against the rebel capital.

Burgoyne, like Montgomery advancing on Quebec, had uttered
a conventional military boast, to the effect that he would eat hi$
Christmas dinner at Albany. As ignorant of the plans of Howe
as he was of those of Washington and Schuyler, he expected to cut
through to his objective with the deliberate certainty of a sharp
knife in an American cheese. To the slowness which the obstruc-
tions left by the retreating rebels imposed, however, he added that
of an elaborate caution against attack. He was eagerly awaiting
news of the secondary maneuver of the invasion, expected to in-
crease his strength and quicken his advance. Far to the westward,
Lieutenant-Colonel Barry St. Leger was moving down the valley
of the Mohawk, with a motley force of British, Germans and Tories,
and a horde of Indians, to join him by that route.

On the third of August, St. Leger ’s army went into camp before
the earthen defenses of Fort Schuyler, and all that night his In-
dians howled and hooted around the dim bastions by the river.
Peter Gansevoort, commander of the post, had provisions for six
weeks. When these were gone, it was his determination to cut
his way down the valley. St. Leger’s summons, with its threats of
Indian massacre, he rejected with contempt.

The Whigs of the Valley, roused at last, mustered their militia
under General Nicholas Herkimer, and marched to the rescue.
The lean German farmer, advancing through the forest with the
caution natural to his sixty-four years, stirred the impatience of the
younger officers. The words, “Tory” and “coward” were heard.
Furious, he ordered the files instantly forward, and hurled the
whole contingent into a cleverly laid ambush of St. Leger’s Indians
and Tory Rangers, at Oriskany, seven miles from the fort. Shot
down at the first fire, he sat against a tree trunk, puffing his pipe
and shouting his orders through the din of one of the most des-

BENEDICT ARNOLD

160

perate and bloody battles of the war. Gansevoort made use of the
opportunity to raid the British camp. But the militia, what was left
of them, had had their fill when the fight ended at dusk, and
Herkimer, who had but a few more days until death found him
with his pipe in his mouth and his Bible in his hand, was borne
home from Oriskany in the morning.

General Schuyler called a council of his officers and proposed to
them that a detachment from the main army be sent to the Mo-
hawk Valley. The main army had still as much trouble with de-
sertions as with recruiting, and had scant confidence in its leader.
The council declared against a division of force. Schuyler pointed
to the slowness of Burgoyne’s and the threat of St. Leger’s advance,
and then, overhearing an accusing “He means to weaken the army,”
murmured in the group before him, suddenly crushed the stem of
his clay pipe in his teeth, recovered, and with irate dignity an-
nounced that he would assume the responsibility himself. Arnold
at once offered to take command and was gratefully accepted.
Washington had already suggested sending him to raise resistance
in the Valley. Congress had but recently voted against his claims to
rank, and he, after the formality of a new resignation rejected on
the grounds of military necessity by Schuyler, was eager for a
chance to redeem his injured honor on the battlefield. In the morn-
ing, drums beat through the camp for volunteers, and eight hun-
dred men were on the muster rolls by midday.

Arnold marched with his customary dispatch to Fort Dayton,
in the German settlements. In addition to his Continentals, a few
disheartened veterans of Oriskany raised his numbers to about a
thousand men. He called a halt and summoned a council of war.
A warrior of the friendly Oneidas had brought him the news that
St. Leger had a thousand Indians and almost as many regulars and
loyalist militia. The council determined to wait for reinforcements,
and Arnold agreed with its decision. His critics have accused this
splendid soldier of foolhardy temerity and blind eagerness for glory.
He was, indeed, ready to take a dangerous chance, but that is an

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA i6z

essential part of the profession. Here, as in his arrival before Quebec,
he showed that he knew when caution was necessary. It was when
there was much to gain and little to lose, as at Valcour, when it
was a choice between reckless daring and passive resignation, as at
Ridgefield, that he led his men against odds with that wild im-
petuosity. And when, two days after the council, he learned that
St. Leger’s trenching and mining had brought the crisis of the siege
perilously near, he thrust its decision aside and ordered the little
army forward by forced marches. A thousand muskets, shouldered
or a-trail, glittered in the sunbeams sifting through the foliage, a
thousand pairs of moccasins trod the soft mold in steady silence,
wooden canteens slapping sturdy hips and gurgling gently, as the
long file slid like a serpent through the forest. Far before it, a
strange advance guard was nearing the camp of the enemy.

St. Leger’s Indians, on whose support his success depended, were
growing weary of siege operations. They had been told that they
would have little to do but smoke their pipes and gather plunder,
and so far they had borne the brunt of the fighting and had lost a
great many hearty young braves, with only the satisfaction of roast-
ing a few prisoners. With more tact than candor, Arnold now sent
before his advancing force a message that he loved his brethren, the
Indians, and consequently did not wish to fight them, but that he
would shortly arrive with a great army to punish the white hire-
lings of the King. The message was skillfully prepared, and skill-
fully delivered.

An attempt had been made to rouse the Tories of the lower
valley to arms. Captured by Arnold’s men, the emissaries had been
duly condemned to the gallows. Among them there was a grotesque
individual, large_of mouth and small of wit, who went by the name
of Hon Yost. This genial soul had passed the greater part of his
life among the savages, who reverenced his frailties and received
his sayings with great respect. His mother and his brother Nicholas
came to Fort Dayton, pleading in broken English for his life. The
General allowed them to prolong their entreaties, and finally offered

162

BENEDICT ARNOLD

a condition: Nicholas would remain as hostage; Hon Yost would
bear his message to the Indians.

Hon Yost, coarse, filthy and ignorant, beamed. Aided, perhaps,
by a sight of the waiting coffin and gallows, he not only succeeded
in digesting the idea, he elaborated upon it with delighted slyness.
He bade some of the American soldiers add a few bullet holes to the
rents in his clothes. This done, he vanished in the woods. It was
arranged that an Oneida should follow him into the British camp
and confirm his story.

In due course, with all the signs of fear and exhaustion, and
his best nit-wit manner, Hon Yost was staggering along in a great
crowd of his savage brethren. In his high, uneven voice, in awed
whispers, he told them of his capture by the approaching host of
the war-chief, Arnold, and of how he had escaped from the very
foot of the gibbet, showing the bullet holes in his garments to
reinforce the tale. How many Americans were coming? He opened
his mouth and rolled his eyes and pointed vaguely to the leaves.
In the meantime, the Oneida had arrived. Arnold, he announced,
who loved the Indians as he hated the English, was almost upon
them with two thousand men. The Oneida had come upon some of
his friends in the woods and had persuaded them to join the sport.
They filtered in with tales of impending doom. One, questioned as
to the source of his information, revealed that he had been warned
of the danger by a talking bird. The Indians had already heard of
Arnold’s coming, and had refused to go against him. Now they
determined that they had had enough of war and would go home.

St. Leger, helpless without them, summoned a council of chiefs,
but the Indians were already on their way. He must follow at once
or be left behind, and that was the best answer they could give
to his entreaties. Realizing now their power, they revelled in it,
stole clothes and liquor, hastened the panic-stricken retreat of the
soldiers through the twilight with cries of “They are coming! They
are coming!” murdered and scalped the stragglers in the darkness.

Hon Yost slipped back to the fort with the good news. Never

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163

troubled by questions of allegiance, be lived to serve the King again,
and died an American citizen. A hasty pursuit failing to overtake
its prey, Arnold marched back to the main army with twelve hun-
dred men.

111. Brother Burgoyne Becomes a Bone of Contention.

Arnold’s triumphant return to camp found the face of things
everywhere altered for the better. When he had left, the rebel arms
had only the prospect of a desperate resistance. This was now
brightening so rapidly that men were dazzled. Hard on his depar-
ture had come the news of the Bennington fight, costing the invader
eight hundred men. Howe, to the surprise of friend and foe, had
definitely undertaken a campaign against Philadelphia. Victory and
the barbarity of the Indian allies of the English were bringing out
the militia in increasing force; five thousand men were in, and
Schuyler felt sure of twice the number before the crisis came.
Still more encouraging, the savages, disgruntled by Burgoyne’s ef-
forts to curb them in that part of warfare which they most enjoyed,
deserted almost in a body. His Tories, too, were beginning to
slip away. The illusion of a triumphal progress was shattered. His
numbers, already reduced by garrisoning Ticonderoga, could only
diminish. The problem of provision was a growing burden. Worry
as he might, however, his orders to advance were positive. But if
anxiety existed, it was not expressed. The English regulars, proudly
conscious of their well-earned fighting prowess, had not yet met
the rebel fire, and were eager to do so. And pompous, handsome
Burgoyne, as he watched the long array move past him in review
by the banks of the Hudson, uttered a boast which no doubt he
intended by battle and maneuver to make a byword for his coun-
try’s soldiers, “Britons never retreat.”

When Arnold returned to camp, Philip Schuyler had fallen the
victim of an injustice similar to that done Sir Guy Carleton, save
that it was here brought about solely by the persistent intriguing of
the rival candidate. The successful rival was Horatio Gates, and

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164

Schuyler acquiesced in the decision of his government and con-
tinued to assist the army with a gentlemanly dignity similar to
that of the Governor General. To the humiliation of a removal
from his command in time of danger, the successful candidate added
the insults of studied rudeness, for Schuyler was in his way, and
therefore an enemy.

After the war, Charles Lee, the lean and cynical, was asked his
opinion of Gates. “A fool,” he pronounced. “If you was to tell him
that a French army was ascending the Potomac mounted on the
backs of alligators, he would believe it.” But if he lacked Lee’s
sophistry and shrewdness, the heavy-witted little general was sharp
in his way and no fool. His relentless intriguing, the pious snobbery
that accompanied his military and social ambitions, the coarse vul-
garity that was natural to him, have obscured the fact that he was a
trained soldier, as sharply sagacious in the field as in his other
activities. Blustering and at times ridiculous, he was able to com-
mand the respect of many officers. He had an easy contempt for
“brother Burgoyne,” whose character, it can be said for him, he
judged most accurately. Gates, finally, had the confidence of the
New England delegation to Congress, on whose militia the cam-
paign depended, and Schuyler, the painstaking and deliberate man-
orial overlord, had not.

Arnold had scrupulously kept on good terms with both leaders.
Writing from the Mohawk Valley on August twenty-first, he con-
gratulated each on his victory at Bennington. It was only in his
letters to Gates, however, that he offered expressions of personal
affection. The fire-eater’s return to the main army was marked
by assurances of good will from both himself and its new com-
mander, and he was ordered to the left wing, a force consisting
chiefly of New England Continentals and militia. There, among
his officers, he found two old comrades of the march to Quebec,
Henry Dearborn, now at the head of a corps of picked light in-
fantry, and Daniel Morgan, with his small but justly famous regi-
ment of riflemen, which Washington had sent north as a match

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA 165

for Burgoyne’s Indian scouts. It was, therefore, with surprise and
perplexity, and with some consternation, that the army watched
the friendship of Gates and Arnold bubble and boil and transform
itself into a bitter feud. But to those who gaze back across the
years, understanding the characters of the two men and of the
situation in which they were placed, the change was an inevitable
one.

Gates succeeded to an army, still small, but with its vital organ-
ization in readiness, an army which possessed the imminent pros-
pect of an overwhelming success. The good fortune of one ad-
venturer always stirs others to action, and Arnold, fresh from
victory won by the sheer terror of his coming, was not minded for
the part of convivial subservience. He was famous. The enemy
feared him and the soldiers loved him. He was the fighting general
of the rebellion. And if he could not take the command from Gates,
it was in his power, by sheer domineering and by hard fighting
when the time came, to control the disposition of the army and to
absorb the glory of victory to himself. But Arnold, driving forward
with blunt determination, lacked the reserve and subtle judgment
of men that is needed for a chain of friendships, and Gates was
on his guard. Both were aggressive types, mutually abrasive as soon
as their interests were divided.

There was added a difference in policy. Gates already outnum-
bered the enemy, and might hope to rise to twice or thrice their
number. He was determined to depend on this advantage, to block
and, if possible, surround Burgoyne, whom he would allow to do the
attacking and to take the risks. Like other officers of British regular
army training, he distrusted the American militia, and feared that
the rout of an attacking party might not stop at the entrenchments,
but sweep the whole line into confusion. There was some justice
to his apprehension, although his three thousand Continentals could
be formed to bear the stress of battle. Oddly, it was such a rout of
militia that caused the debacle at Camden, where his military career
was to be ended.

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BENEDICT ARNOLD

The fighting general, on the other hand, could do wonders with
militia, and had proven that they would face danger with him.
Burgoyne’s excellent field artillery would give him an advantage-
in stor ming the American trenches, and, indeed, in any conflict in
the open. It was Arnold’s suggestion, therefore, to attack him in
the woods, where his cannon would be useless, and the Americans
at their best. And although Gates realized the value of the sugges-
tion, still he was afraid of this ungovernable soldier of fortune, this
stocky gentleman who hurled himself into battle with such reck-
less zest. Superior officers were apt to be a nuisance to Arnold, and
one with a less vigorous program was intolerable. Gates was a man
of method and safe courses. He was contemptuous of dash and
chivalry, well satisfied to see it in Burgoyne, but fearful of Arnold’s
swift temerity.

As the human propensity for taking sides asserted itself, factions
began to develop. The friends of Schuyler began now to speak as
highly of Arnold as they condemned the intrusive Gates. Richard
Varick, a large-eyed, large-nosed, placid-faced Hollander of twenty-
four years, formerly the secretary of Schuyler, was now the secre-
tary of Arnold, whom he vastly admired. He wrote with faithful
regularity to his former chief, describing all that passed in the
army.

“N. B.,” he noted, at the end of a long letter of September
twelfth, “I forgot to tell you that a little spirit happened on Wednes-
day evening between Gates and Arnold. Inter nos!’ There was the
beginning. But the little spirit soon grew into a notorious wrangle,
and Varick became increasingly forceful in his expressions of opin-
ion, softened only at last by a fear that he might be accused of
inciting Arnold in his rash opposition. Henry Brockholst Living-
ston, formerly on Schuyler’s staff, now on Arnold’s, later a Supreme
Court Justice, explained tactfully to the fallen leader, “The reason
for the disagreement between two old cronies is simply this: Arnold
is your friend.”

Gates, too, had friends to take his part, to flatter his vanity and

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA 167

listen with respect to his pronouncements, among them Colonel
Morgan Lewis, his Chief of Staff and Quartermaster-General, a
gentleman who not only possessed a low opinion of Dutchmen, but
had taken Brown’s part in the broil at Albany in 1776. But the
strength of Gates lay in the natural reluctance of the senior officers
to join in such differences in the presence of an enemy, and in the
almost dictatorial powers granted him by Congress. It was within
his authority to dismiss any officer from the army, but he was re-
luctant to exercise the right against so popular an enemy until
Arnold had shown some conspicuous insubordination. To end the
matter peaceably was impossible, and he therefore allowed it to
grow, threatened to weaken Arnold’s command by detaching Mor-
gan, and goaded his proud temper by a lack of consideration in
his arrangements for the increasing army, and by frequent con-
temptuous references in his conversations.

The army in which this unpropitious contest was taking place
had advanced along the west bank of the Hudson to Stillwater, near
Saratoga, and twenty miles to the north of Albany. At Bemis
Heights, where the flat lowland bordering the river, on which the
road to Albany ran and most of which had been cleared for cultiva-
tion, was narrowed by a bend in the river, Gates placed the right
wing, under his personal command, and extended the line of trench
and battery up the bluffs that overlooked the valley, west and north-
west into the hilly, wooded terrain where Arnold commanded the
left. In this forest upland, broken by hills and precipitous ravines
cutting down to the water, there was but one space of cleared land,
a few acres in front of Arnold’s position, Freeman’s Farm.

The days dawned in a veil of heavy mist, and passed in still,
hot brilliance, or trembling under cold storms of thunder and rain.
Stirred by tales of Indian atrocity, by the return of the Indians to
Canada, by love of country, by the chance of a fight, by the prospect
of victory, stained dust brown, weary in face and limb from long
marches, the militia were coming in. Lean Yankees strolled through
the camp, dragging their guns behind them, asking personal ques-

i68

BENEDICT ARNOLD

tions in their loud nasal drawl, looking for likely trades in baccy,
drink or clothing, descanting to the blinking New Yorkers on
Liberty and Equality. Militiamen learned from the Continentals
the trick of making cartridges by rolling enough powder for one
shot in enough paper for one gun wadding. Soldiers became pro-
ficient in what Washington vainly bemoaned as “the foolish and
wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing.” They learned to
gamble outrageously. “Pretended piety and Presbyterian general
orders” were obnoxious to half the army. They made friends and
drank, they made enemies and fought, they stole, they deserted, they
proved in a thousand original informalities what Gates was obliged
to confess as “the infant state of our military discipline.” They
worked with sturdy energy at the trenches. They stole out in small
bodies to plague the pickets of the enemy.

In the meantime, “Handsome Jack” was approaching, with
blithe British determination, ready to make the best of whatever he
might find. Much to the disgust of the little blue-eyed Baroness
Riedesel, he was wont to forget worries in the charms of an amiable
commissary’s wife. Oddly enough, General Howe had also a com-
missary’s wife in whom to forget his trials and duties. The saucy
rebels always gloated over Howe’s bullheadedness.

“Sir William, he,” they sang, “snug as a flea,

Lay all this time a-snoring,

Nor dreamed of harm as he lay warm.

In bed with Mrs. L ng.”

The invaders were constantly annoyed by small parties of Ameri-
cans. Arnold had been ordered out in force to reconnoiter and
skirmish, but, finding the ground unfavorable, He retired without
an action. Burgoyne, however, as ignorant of Gates’ numbers and
position as he was of what aid he might expect from Sir Henry
Clinton at New York, could only advance blindly and form his
battle according to circumstances.

The morning sun of the nineteenth of September cleared the

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA 169

mist and melted a light hoar frost into dew, rising toward a clear
sky, as signal guns boomed ominously in the forest, guiding the
march of Burgoyne’s advancing columns. Phillips and Riedesel were
marching down the river road. Burgoyne and Fraser, with grena-
diers and light infantry, were plodding over the thickly wooded
hills, the remnant of the Canadian and Indian scouts before them,
to attack the American left wing, and, if possible, to turn it.

Gates issued no orders when the movement of the enemy was
first reported, but apparently yielding to the arguments of Arnold
and the approach of danger, he at last ordered out Morgan and
Dearborn to strike the column advancing against their left. There
need be no fear that these troops would fall back on the trenches
in panic. It was high noon, the warm sunbeams streaming in
straight brilliance through the pillared foliage high above, touching,
here and there, the lithe hunting shirts as they hurried forward to
attack.

Meeting the line of Canadians and Indians with a crackling,
irregular volley from the rifles, they hurled it back in wild dis-
order. They surged forward on the run, and struck the main col-
umns of Burgoyne’s maneuver at the clearing of Freeman’s Farm.
There, in turn, they were met by a storm of ordered volleys that
scattered their line in a break for cover. Morgan, sounding his
shrill whistle through the woods, cried out, with tears in his eyes,
that the corps was ruined. But the riflemen had merely answered the
instinct to “give them Indian play,” and rallied again to the “turkey
call” of their gigantic leader. They were supported now by the two
New Hampshire regiments of scowling Colonel Cilley and of Alex-
ander Scammel, with his fine, proud face, eager to win glory for
his country and his “Dearest Nabby,” waiting at Mystic.

At Freeman’s Farm, with its huddle of cabins and its meadows,
Burgoyne took advantage of the open ground to form three regi-
ments of his British grenadiers in line, the flanks held by the
Twentieth and Twenty-first, two of the oldest and proudest regi-
ments in the King’s service. At about one o’clock Arnold placed

170 BENEDICT ARNOLD

his men in action against this line, Morgan’s marksmen, many of
them perched in trees, began their deadly work, and the New
Hampshire Continentals swept the clearing with their volleys.
White breeches and scarlet coats side by side, a white and scarlet
ribbon across the meadows, it was an easy target, and was soon
crumpled and blown back toward the woods beyond. Then the
Americans charged, a rush of feet in the grass, a rattle of arms and
a long cheer, pouring out under the open sky, till they, too, were
withered and driven back by a hidden fire. For almost four hours
the fight raged back and forth at Freeman’s Farm, Arnold ever
watching for points of weakness or danger and filling them with
new reinforcements from the rear. Unable to stand in the clearing
against an enemy sheltered by the woods, neither side could hold
the advantages it gained. Again and again the wave of blue flowed
up to the British cannon and uproariously claimed them for
America, and then, unable to hold the ground or drag them back
without horses, lost them again. The dead lay thick in the grass,
“as thick,” a Yankee militiaman wrote home to his wife, “as ever
I saw rock heaps lay in the field where it is extremely rocky. God
grant I may make a wise improvement of such an awful scene.”

Arnold, with the advantage of numbers, kept lengthening his
left, forcing Burgoyne, to avoid having his flank turned, to bend
his line back and face a part of it more and more to the westward.
In this manner, the British center became the point of a salient,
exposed to a fire from both sides. Again and again the grenadiers
charged with the bayonet, bending, but unable to break the rebel
line, whose militia had caught the determined valor of the Con-
tinentals among whom they fought. The ignorant, quarrelsome,
complaining men of camp and march became the heroes of song
and story. The English, their cannon silenced, stood desperately
among their dead, refusing to admit defeat. Then the tide turned
again.

Neither Arnold nor any of his subordinates had considered it
necessary to send out scouts or covering detachments to guard the

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA 171

eastern flank of his advanced position. And now Riedesel, hasten-
ing up from the river valley, surprised it. Not waiting for his main
body, he rushed the advance guard into action, with a roll of drums
and their long German “Hurrah!” their steady volleys drowning
the din of irregular fire. It was near dusk. Arnold, riding a gray
horse along the rear of the battle, saw the danger and galloped to
Gates’ headquarters.

“General,” he said, “the British are reinforced. We must have
more men.”

■ Gates squinted nearsightedly upwards. “You shall have them,”
he said, and gave orders to an aide for General Learned’s brigade
to advance at double quick. The two jealous men, without speaking,
listened to the sound of the volleys roaring through the din of
broken firing. Morgan Lewis rode in, and announced that the bat-
tle was still undecided. Arnold ground his teeth and turned his
horse.

“By God,” he cried, “I’ll soon put an end to it!”

With querulous disgust, Lewis remarked that the action was
going well, and gave it as his opinion that the firebrand on the
gray horse would do no good. Gates nodded and sent an aide riding
in pursuit to bring him back. Arnold, with the reinforcements, who
doubled the number brought by Riedesel, might have swept the
dreaded Germans and the proud but battered grenadiers from the
field. Instead, he obeyed the order, and Learned’s brigade, ignorant
of the ground, failed to come into the action. Twilight was deep-
ening into night, and one by one, the American divisions withdrew
to their trenches.

The invasion had lost six hundred of its men, the defense half
the number. Had Gates supported Arnold more vigorously, or pre-
vented Riedesel’s westward move by an attack along the river, he
might have conquered completely. But his policy was primarily de-
fensive. Had Burgoyne carried through his plan of attack on the
day after the battle, he, also, might have been victorious, for the
rebels, as usual after an engagement, were taking things very easily.

BENEDICT ARNOLD

172

But the fight was out of him for the time, and he had hopes of
Clinton’s advancing from New York to aid him. He determined
to wait, a policy perfectly in accord with that of General Gates.
His soldiers, fearless and unvanquished still, were depressed by
their losses, their diminishing rations, the daily skirmishes and the
gray prospect. All night the wolves barked and howled through the
forest, dragging the dead from their shallow graves at Freeman’s
Farm. The Germans were homesick. The slowness of their motions
accentuated the brutality of warfare, and even their allies, in the
phrase of a young Englishman, thought of them as “a set of cruel,
unfeeling people.” A sentimental race, they missed their beer and
schnapps.

Shortly after the battle, the invaders heard thirteen booming
salutes reecho from the rebel camp, followed by as many hearty
cheers. Gates allowed a prisoner to escape that they might know
the cause of it. A raiding party of Americans, acting under the
orders of Major-General Lincoln, had swooped down on Ticonder-
oga, carried the outworks and released a large number of prisoners.
All but the old stone fort fell into their hands. Lincoln had found
himself too fat and stiff to lead this dashing enterprise in person.
That honor he had accorded to the limping Nemesis of this his-
tory, Colonel John Brown. Colonel Brown, failing to bluff the old
stronghold into surrender after a four days’ cannonade, retired with
his glory.

The army at Bemis Heights continued to grow in strength from
day to day, and the wrangle at headquarters grew wjth the cer-
tainty of victory. Colonel Varick wrote in sour indignation to Schuy-
ler of a military triumph lost through Gates’ perfidy. The dispute
boiled up again more hotly, as Gates, in his official report of the
action, gracefully avoided any mention of Arnold. That gendeman,
as may be imagined, was in a fury and made no effort to conceal
the fact. He swore that only the imminence of an engagement
prevented him from quitting the army. He swore that he would
tolerate no further interference from headquarters in his division.

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA

173

When the service permitted, General Gates would render him satis-
faction upon the field of honor. He had been “huffed,” he declared,
“in such a manner as must mortify a person with less pride than I.”

Such threats and such conduct in the presence of an enemy
would naturally place one in sympathy with the commanding of-
ficer against whom they were directed, were it not obvious that
Gates was quite willing to let the matter rise to a crisis. Arnold had
shown skill, caution and obedience in the battle, where, consider-
ing his lack of training and experience in large operations, he had
conducted them extremely well. To have mentioned his services in
the report would have been both tact and justice. Such insubordina-
tion is further softened when one recollects how common it was,
in the individualistic spirit of their civilization, among all ranks of
the Revolutionary forces. One might cite the example of John Stark,
who, baldly refusing to join the Continental forces till he be given
the rank to which he considered himself entitled, happened to be
at Bennington in time to win that hard-fought and gallant con-
test. Sharing then the opinion of his soldiers that they had done
enough, he moved only in the most gingerly manner to join Gates,
arrived on the day before the battle, and that being the day when
their enlistments expired, led them home again.

On September the twenty-second Arnold wrote to Gates, ex-
plaining his grievances, complaining that his advice was unheeded,
and asked for a pass to go to Philadelphia, where he expressed a
hope he might be of some service to his country. Gates read the
letter, probably aloud, blandly remarked that Arnold was of no
consequence to the army, and sent him a letter of introduction to
President Hancock. This was immediately returned with a demand
for the reasons behind the public effrontery, and for a pass. The pass
was granted, and produced what the adventurer desired, a protest
from the army. Many officers felt that Arnold was needed. Many
shared the opinion of Schuyler that Gates did not wish to share the
glory of success with the more active soldier. In the heat of the fac-
tion, moreover, and apparently for the first time in his career,

BENEDICT ARNOLD

174

Arnold had won the friendship of an enemy. He was sharing his
quarters in the camp with General Enoch Poor, commander of a
brigade in his division. General Poor had been President of the
stormy Hazen court-martial, the entire bench of whose judges Ar-
nold had taken the liberty of challenging. He now prepared an
address thanking General Arnold for his services and leadership,
and offered it for signature to the generals and colonels of the left
wing. Some, however, being unwilling to offend Gates, a letter
urging Arnold to remain was signed by all the general officers of
the army, Lincoln and its commander excepted. But the aggrieved
fire-eater, of course, had no intention of going.

Gates had threatened that when Lincoln returned from his busi-
ness with Ticonderoga, Arnold would find himself without a com-
mand. Lincoln had marched in on the twenty-ninth, and at once
the shameful uproar grew in intensity. Lincoln found Arnold men-
acingly sensitive on any interference in his division. The fat old
general, however, who was not disposed to partisanship and acted
only as he thought best for an orderly regime in the army, was
given command of the right, while Gates himself, in an informal
manner suited to his purpose, replaced Arnold at the left.

On the first of October, the head of the Northern Department
received another futile letter of accusation and complaint. “Con-
scious of my own innocency and integrity,” the fire-eater declared
in his best soul-baring fashion, “I am determined to sacrifice my
feelings, present Peace & quiet to the Public good, & continue in
the army at this critical juncture, when my country needs every
support.” He ended with a prophecy of ruin should the policy of
inactivity be continued.

The dispute now hinged on Gates’ power to suspend officers, and
this worried him. There was a rumor in the army that the power
had been Schuyler’s and Gates imagined he could take it over with
the command. He wrote to Schuyler about this on the next day. But
although the right was his on the authority of Congress, the ad-
venturer with the spectacles was loth to use it. He was obviously

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA

175

afraid of the effect of so drastic an action on Congress and the army.
He withdrew Morgan, friendly to Arnold, from his command.
After the arrival of Lincoln he issued orders directly to the briga-
diers and colonels of the left, ignoring Arnold. Tanta l i z ed by his
gradual, inconspicuous exclusion, with the same impotent fury of
the early days at Fort Ticonderoga, Arnold walked apart, brooding
in sullen rage, tortured by the presence of two enemies to be con-
quered to his glory and his inability to reach them, waves of wrath-
ful energy tightening the muscles of his body.

7F. The Summit of a Wild Career.

The varying and tangled narratives on which historians must
depend so much in reconstructing the scenes of a battlefield, gave
rise to theories, in this candid generation thoroughly exploded, that
Arnold was not on the field during the first battle of Saratoga,
that he gave no orders, and even that he was drunk at his quarters
the whole time. He was not, to be sure, at the front of the battle,
leading the charges. That is the place of a general only in time of
desperate effort or when his men are wavering before the enemy.
He rode, with his aides, along the rear of his line, where it was
possible for him to be in touch with all its divisions, leaving the
field only when the urgent need for reinforcements called him to
headquarters. Gates, also, has been condemned for his prudence in
keeping out of gunshot, and even suspected of seeking relief from
anxiety in the bottle. Gates was certainly not the type of soldier
eager to inspirit his men by exposing himself to danger. Caution
was his nature, and his position behind the lines accorded with the
most efficient control of the army. But the rising rage of his in-
activity was bearing Arnold beyond all thought of prudence.

To see many men in battle reveals little of their characters,
shows them forcing themselves as best they can into the mold of
the fighting machine, or altered by the tense emotions and un-
natural environment. Some are coolly themselves. Some, among

1 76 BENEDICT ARNOLD

them the tempestuous mariner of New Haven, are in their most
vivid self-expression. Arnold’s commercial and military life shows
his forceful demand for action, for the consummation of his am-
bitions, often acting brutally in despicable deceits. But in the face
of an enemy, vivid, concrete, perilous, pettiness was lost and he was
at his highest. In battle, his quick, sensitive mind and strong body
moved in splendid harmony, clear, precise and terrible. He was not
cool and rational. He moved with the hot swiftness of inspiration,
and with instinctive accuracy.

Only one circumstance now upheld Arnold’s urgent appeals for
an attack, Clinton’s advance from New York. Reinforced from
England, Clinton had at last started up the Hudson into the masses
of crag and mountain where “old Put” was the incompetent com-
mander of an inadequate army, past the frowning Dunderberg to
Doodletown, and had carried the forts by storm, John Lamb’s
artillery thundering in vain against him. He was now in a position
where he could threaten the base at Albany, whence Schuyler was
still devotedly supplying the army of the Northern Department.
Fortunately, however, it was his intention to risk no more than the
threat.

Gates continued his policy of outpost fighting, and began to cut
off Burgoyne’s retreat. His prospects were brightening continually,
the while that sickness, desertion and despondency wore down the
strength of his enemy. Riedesel and Fraser were for retreat while
there was yet a chance. But Burgoyne, unable to consider so in-
glorious a measure, decided at last, without any apparent purpose,
on a reconnaissance in force.

Late in the morning of the seventh of October he advanced with
fifteen hundred picked troops across the ground he had won so
dearly two weeks before, and took a position on a height of the
cleared land. The position, however, was a weak one, broken
through its front by a ravine, and exposed to flank attacks from the
woods. Gates received word of the weakness with zest. Through the
American camp the drums were beating to arms.

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA 177

“Order on Morgan to begin the game,” he said.

The big Virginian, at his own suggestion, marched to turn the
British right, while Poor’s brigade advanced against their left. When
these had found their marks, General Learned was to strike the
center. The riflemen, supported again by Dearborn’s light infantry,
struck their blow on the westward, driving back the British right
till it was rallied to a stand by Lord Balcarres. Poor’s Continentals
attacked with cool fury on the east, driving the outnumbered grena-
diers before them with exultant carnage. An aide, Sir Francis
Clarke, galloped from Burgoyne’s side to order a retreat, but fell
mortally wounded, and the fight went on.

In the meantime, Arnold, mounted on a splendid bay charger,
had been riding about the camp in a torment of impotence, watch-
ing his regiments being ordered out by the aides of Gates. His excite-
ment rose till it was bursting into an ecstasy of mad fury. He was
full of the high-sounding phrases with which the warriors of that
day and of subsequent American melodrama encouraged their
troops. He turned wildly to his little family of faithful officers.

“No man shall keep me in my tent to-day!” he cried. “If I am
without command I will fight in the ranks, but the soldiers, God
bless them, will follow my lead! Come on! Victory or death!”

Learned’s men, advancing on the British center, received the
rider in buff and blue with a cheer. The men were rushing forward,
a hoarse excitement sounding along the ranks as they neared the
battle. Arnold was among them, his sword in the air.

“Whose regiment is this ?” he called out at one place.

“Colonel Latimer’s, sir.”

“Ah, my old Norwich and New London friends! God bless
you! I am glad to see you! Now come on, boys, if the day is long
enough we’ll have them all in hell before night!”

Behind him, the jogging line surged forward to the charge.
Farmer lads, knuckles white where they gripped their guns, breath-
ing hard, and veterans of three years’ service with faces hardened in
expectation, ran forward, the weight of the long flintlocks swinging

178 BENEDICT ARNOLD

them on. They halted, delivered their fire, and swept on again,
toward the waiting line of blue-coated German infantry: a long
wave of homespun, of ragged shirts and bare, broad chests, a wave of
bayonets stretched out before the hurtling bodies, and clubbed
muskets swinging high. The Germans, holding doggedly to their
works, drove them back a space, and then retreated, as the wave
surged in again. As three thousand militiamen reinforced the
American front, the shattered remnant of their opponents every-
where gave way, Burgoyne himself, his clothing torn by the bullets
of the riflemen, bringing them off. The Americans had ripped the
reconnaissance to shreds. Their losses were too slight to be felt.
They were ready for more, eager to carry the fight into the enemy’s
camp.

Against their redoubt at Freeman’s Farm, commanding in some
measure the surrounding country, manned largely by survivors of
the wreck, and ably held by the young Earl of Balcarres, Arnold
hurled the victorious regiments, shouting like a maniac as he dashed
among them, his sword glittering around him through the smoke.
Uniting the bodies of men with instinctive skill, he led them to the
charge, in the face of musketry and grape, across the abattis and
against Balcarres’ works. But their rush was checked at the breast-
work, and they fell back again, shielding themselves behind stumps
and hillocks to keep up a hot, close fire, “a continual sheet of flame
along the lines,” a British officer described it. But there was small
chance to decide the issue here.

Westward, along the neutral ground between the two fires of
friend and enemy, the battle-mad fire-eater rode. It was a feat of
unheard-of temerity. Coming upon a part of Learned’s brigade, he
led it against the outposts of a redoubt held by von Breymann’s
Germans, and cleared them. The redoubt commanded Burgoyne’s
camp, and to take it would leave him the choice of counter offensive
or surrender. Arnold gathered more troops and charged again.
Behind him, again, came a wave of long-haired men, of faces lined
and sharpened by the struggle with the wilderness strained and

179

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA

sharpened now behind the surging, lunging bayonets, of hands,
hardened by the flail and scythe, swinging their muskets among the
bodies before them, as, in a moment, they broke over the top,
driving the Germans before them. The fugitives hurled a few last
volleys at the charge. A fifer boy, who had played his flammadiddles
and paddadiddles in the Mohawk campaign, went down underfoot,
gashed across the head by the flying fragments of a comrade’s skull.
Von Breymann, his sabre red with the blood of his own men, was
by them shot down in the redoubt. And there Arnold’s bay charger,
pounding in through a sally port, threw up its head and rolled upon
the trampled ground. The General was wounded, and his men
rushed to him. The thigh bone of his left leg was shattered by a
bullet. The German who had fired it lay helpless near by, and a
soldier ran to take vengeance with his bayonet. Arnold’s quick eyes
glittered.

“Don’t hurt him,” he called. “He’s a fine fellow!”

Behind the victors on von Breymann’s redoubt, the autumn sun
glared redly, as the long, cool shadows of the forest crept across
them. A little crowd of soldiers, mouths black from biting open
their cartridges, hair stringy and faces glistening with sweat, stood
around him. A surgeon washed the blood from the white flesh and
felt the wound, frowning, and observing that the leg might have to
come off. The fire-eater’s madness boiled fretfully to the surface
again. He would have no such damned nonsense. He struggled to
rise, glanced angrily at the faces around him. The battle was not
over yet: they would lift him on a horse and he would see the
action through.

An officer dismounted and pushed through to the General’s
side. It was an aide of Gates, who had been pursuing him in vain
since he had left the camp. He now delivered his message, an order
for General Arnold to return instantly to his quarters. A litter
was made of poles and blankets, and the wounded man returned,
pale and shaken, but with the infinite satisfaction of having won
his enemy’s battle for him. It was growing dark and cold, the rattle

i8o BENEDICT ARNOLD

of the muskets dying out along the lines. The soldiers, with their
tired faces and powder blackened lips, paused on their guns to
watch him carried by.

The battle, with its burden of tragedy and triumph, was over.
Sir Francis Clarke, whom Burgoyne had sent to withdraw the recon-
naissance, was dying, a prisoner, on Gates’ bed. Gates was annoyed
that he could not convince the young man of the justice of the re-
bellion. “Did you ever see,” he inquired confidentially of an officer,
“so impudent a son of a bitch?” Burgoyne himself was in despair.
Acland was wounded and a prisoner. Fraser, his best-loved general,
had been laid dying on the table where the Baroness Riedesel had
invited him to dine that day.

The losses in Gates’ army were inconsequential, although an
accident of the following day deprived him of his only other major-
general. The wounding of Lincoln was in contrast to the dashing
fall of Arnold. Lincoln, bald, fleshy and capable, his gaze steady
and his big mouth firm despite the fact that he was under fire,
was reconnoitering in the hope that Balcarres’ position might be
severed from the rest of the British camp. Suddenly, he shuddered,
the long mouth tightening.

“The rascals have struck me.” And when the aide who accom-
panied him inquired, “In my hip, I believe.” The aide dismounted
and examined.

“It is your ankle, sir.”

“Indeed, I thought it was my hip.” They rode back to the hos-
pital.

At the hospital, time dragged slowly. Arnold lay in somber pain
and impatience, the faithful Varick watching over him. Captains
Brown and Pettingill presented themselves to demand the reason
why he had struck them with his sword when animating the troops
in the last battle. He apologized for the accidents, of which he had
no recollection whatever. He brightened when the danger of an
amputation passed, but the inactivity galled him still.

“General Lincoln is in a fair way of recovery,” one erf the sur-

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA 181

geons wrote, two months later. “In his character is united the pa-
tient philosopher, and pious Christian.

“Not so the gallant Arnold. His peevishness would degrade the
most capricious of the fair sex; nor is his wound, though less dan-
gerous in the beginning than Lincoln’s, in so fair a way of healing.

“He abuses us for a set of ignorant pretenders and empirics.”

V. The Fruits of Victory.

On the seventeenth of October the soldiers of the invasion laid
down their arms and marched dejectedly, a stained and tattered
array, between the long files of their conquerors, bringing with
them into their captivity a great number of slatternly women, dogs,
bears, coons, and other objects of sentimental attachment. There was
no utterance from the ranks, save only the lively comment of the
fifes and drums,

Yankee Doodle keep it up,

Yankee Doodle dandy — ”

General Burgoyne and General Gates had met with mutual cour-
tesy, and were engaged now in a war of compliments. The hand-
some English general, in his glittering scarlet and gold, had fallen
to the son of a duke’s housekeeper, but he bore it with a proud
grace. He had once, in a defiant mood, referred to his adversary as
“an old midwife.” The American soldiers, in their candor, were
willing to agree with him, as far as appearances were concerned,
and a version of the surrender scene was passed about the camp, in
which their general himself acknowledged the description in a
witty parry. Burgoyne, according to the story, marched boldly up
to his conqueror and looked him over.

“Are you a general?” says he. “You look more like a granny
than you do like a general.”

“I be a granny,” Gates replies with sturdy emphasis, “and Eve
delivered you of ten thousand men to-day.”

i8a BENEDICT ARNOLD

If the terms of the capitulation, thanks to the proximity of Sir
Henry Clinton, were not wholly favorable to the victors, Congress
mended that in good time by breaking them. An open French alli-
ance was expected with a confidence not to be disappointed. The
people as a whole, to be sure, had not lost their distrust of Rome
and the traditional enemy, and were wont to think of the race as
consisting entirely of barbers and fiddlers and possessed of other
strange qualities. But the prospect of a French army and navy on
the scene was too tempting for resistance. A young British officer
with the habit of doggerel noted their satisfaction in verse.

“Begar, said Monsieur, one grand coup
You shall bientot behold, sir.

This was believed as gospel true.

And Jonathan felt bold, sir.”

“Felt bold” hardly expressed it. Just as hatred, fanned by tales
of atrocity, reached its height, came a crushing victory. Propaganda
was constructively circulated with all the heaviness and snarling
zest of modem nations at war. Plays were acted, gummy with
malice. Montgomery was depicted on the stage, preparing his mind
for battle:

“Are we the offspring of that cruel foe
Who late at Montreal, with symbol dire,

Did call the savages to taste of blood,

Life-warm and steaming from the bullock slain.

And with full language, told it was the blood
Of a Bostonian made the sacrifice?

At this the hell-hounds, with infernal gust

To the snuffed wind held up their blood-stained mouths.

And filled with howlings the adjacent hills.”

Throughout the drama the Englishman is pictured in irascible
superlatives.

THE FIELDS OF SARATOGA

183

“The toad’s foul mouth, the snake’s envenomed bite,

Black spider, asp, or froth of rabid dog,

Is not so deadly as these murderers.”

In lighter accompaniment ranted the heavy, bitter humor of the
time. Howe would find a carefully constructed proclamation, loudly
declared unworthy “the poor, contemptible chief of a vanquished,
blockaded, half-starved, half-naked, half-rotten, half-paid, mongrel
banditti composed of the sweepings of the jails of Britain, Ireland,
Germany and America. Oh, fie, Sir William! Blush, blush for your
proclamation!

“Carleton, Burgoyne, Howe,

Bow-wow- wow !”

With the sense of triumph came the demand for an offensive
policy. “We have tried Fabius,” a member of Congress wrote. “Now
let us see what Hannibal can do. Our general will especially shine
in both characters.” All Congress, however, had not this confidence
in “our general.” Washington, with Schuyler, had played the part
of Fabius, and many felt the same angry impatience that another
congress had felt for Fabius himself. Washington, catching the
contagion, attacked at Germantown.

But even the Commander-in-chief’s policy of defense had failed,
and Congress did not take easily the loss of Philadelphia. Gates
was the hero, "Duci strenuo comitia Americana,” idol of his sup-
porters, godfather to a vast number of male infants, very busy snub-
bing and criticizing the stolid Virginian, to whom he owed his
first rank in the army. As a buzzing undercurrent, there developed
the movement to which the talkativeness of one of its less conse-
quential adherents had given the name of the Conway Cabal. A
new Board of War was formed on the surrender day, and Gates
placed at its head. Dissatisfaction was growing, carefully nurtured,
as the machinery for the succession of Gates was prepared.

One of the immediate results of the victory over Burgoyne was

BENEDICT ARNOLD

184

a plan for a return to Canada. Secret preparations began immedi-
ately, Gates eagerly behind them. Canada had still the glitter of con-
quest which had drawn so many to the north. This glitter was now
utilized by the insurgent faction for the advancement of their pur-
poses. It was held before the eyes of the young Marquis de Lafay-
ette, who was, by his own ingenuous confession, extremely suscep-
tible to the prospect of glory, to whom they offered the independent
command of the northern army in a new invasion. A Frenchman,
the Marquis would naturally win the sympathy of many of the
Canadians. But the real object of the Board of War was to sever so
important a link to France from Washington and unite him to their
own following.

Lafayette, entranced by the opportunity, saw nevertheless their
design, and accepted only on condition that Washington give him
his instructions and receive his reports. He made his allegiance
distressingly clear to the conspirators. Then he set out for Albany.
There he discovered but the shadow of the great army which the
Board, in its eagerness to win him, had assured him was ready for
the field. He felt ridiculous. He wrote in bitter complaint of “my
fine and glorious campaign.” Schuyler and Lincoln had already ad-
vised him that the scheme was impractical with the resources at
hand. And now Arnold, watching sullenly the bustle of prepara-
tion from his sickbed at Albany, added the force of his argument.

Arnold had at last received the rank which he had so vehemently
claimed, giving him now precedence over Lincoln and satisfaction
to his honor. It was small solace to his energetic soul. The agony
of helplessness was added to the aching of his wound. He had
always entertained a low opinion of the French. When the boy
general came and sat by his bedside, he had strong reasoning to
offer against the Canadian venture. As a better plan, he talked much
of a diversion against New York, to capture it or aid the retaking
of Philadelphia. The Marquis listened with interest if not convic-
tion. For General Arnold was now, in the eyes of every one, except
perhaps himself, a Washington man.

CHAPTER X

GENERAL ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS
I. The Taper of Love.

In 1861, the whole of Saratoga County, New York, gathered at
a little white farmhouse to celebrate the hundredth birthday of “old
father Downing,” who had served, as a lad in his teens, in the glori-
ous campaigns of ’seventy-seven. Three years later, in the last days
of the Civil War, a visitor came to hear the old man’s story, and
found him at work in the sunshine among his bees. Arnold he
remembered well, for he had marched behind him in the Mohawk
Valley.

“Arnold was our fighting general, and a bloody fellow he was.
He didn’t care for nothing. He’d ride right in. It was ‘Come on,
boys!’ ’twasn’t ‘Go, boys!’ He was as brave a man as ever lived. He
was dark skinned, with black hair, of middling height. There wasn’t
any waste timber in him. He was a stern looking man, but kind to
his soldiers. They didn’t treat him right: he ought to have had
Burgoyne’s sword. But he ought to have been true. We had true
men then. ’Twasn’t as it is now. Everybody was true: the Tories
we’d killed or driven to Canada.”

Past days towered belligerently over the present as the bent and
thin-lipped veteran recalled them. Even the enemy was easier to
handle in the old days. “There’s where I call ’em gentlemen. Bless
your body, we had gentlemen to fight with in those days. When
they was whipped they gave up. It isn’t so now. Gates was an old
granny looking fellow.” And so the pleased old man, whose life
lay stretched so vividly behind him, rambled on.

The officers of the Revolutionary army, those who had not come

1S5

i86

BENEDICT ARNOLD

within range of his implacable displeasure, were now loud in their
admiration of General Arnold. Washington presented him with a
handsome brace of pistols, and later, when a French gentleman sent
him two pairs of epaulettes and sword knots to be awarded where
he though honor most due, gave them to Arnold and Lincoln.
Even the distrustful Morgan Lewis echoed the praise. The soldiery-
adored him, for his name meant honor and victory, and his leader-
ship was with them in the time of danger. Congress had no one who
dared oppose his ranking. He had reached the height of his fame
riding through the smoke and uproar at von Breymann’s redoubt.
The Columbiad describes his glory in the stately, stilted rhythms
that measured the beating of young America’s exultant heart.

“And why, sweet Minstrel, from the harp of fame
Withold so long that once resounding name?

The chief who, steering by the boreal star,

O’er wild Canadia led our infant war,

In desperate straits superior powers display’d,

Burgoyne’s dread scourge, Montgomery’s ablest aid;

Ridgefield and Compo saw his valorous might
With ill-arm’d swains put veteran troops to flight.

Tho treason foul hath since absorb’d his soul,

Bade waves of dark oblivion round him roll,

Sunk his proud heart, abhorrent and abhorr’d,

Effaced his memory and defiled his sword;

Yet then untarnisht roll’d his conquering car;

The famed and foremost in the ranks of war
Brave Arnold trbd; high valor warm’d his breast,

And beams of glory play’d around his crest.”

The fire-eater’s adventures had caught the imagination of the old
world. The English did not laugh at him, as they did at many of
the homespun generals. It is said that John Wilkes, the English
apostle of liberty, on meeting Burgoyne at Bath, had inquired if
he thought seriously of a march to Albany.

“Certainly,” replied Burgoyne.

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 187

“Why then, you will as certainly be taken prisoner by Arnold.
Therefore pray accept a letter from me to Hancock.”

The General declined with pompous courtesy.

Throughout the campaign, England had been tormented by
reports that the rough and furious Arnold was tearing the invaders
to pieces, and blithely publishing, as every one else was doing at
home and abroad, parodies on the bombastic proclamations of the
grandiose invader. Of Gates and Schuyler the English took no no-
tice. It was “one Arnold” that had caught their fancy, for they could
both admire an enemy and laugh at defeat.

“To North the Lean said George the Wise,

‘Here's with one Arnold much ado ; 5

The drowsy Premier, starting, cries,

‘’Tis well, my liege, there are not two .” 5

From far-away Mainz came another echo, a poor German
butcher, Georg Arnold, pleading and pleading with the great
Fr anklin at Paris to tell him if this noble general of whose valor
and warlike deeds he had heard so much, could not be that son of
his who had run away to America in 1773. He made a stir about
it until people were talking of “General Arnold, the butcher’s son.”

If the noble General Arnold had reached the highest eminence
of his career, he himself, of course, was the person least apt to guess
it. To him, one pinnacle was interesting chiefly as it led to another,
a fact which added greatly to the torment of the broken thigh, for
the wound mended slowly. Two immediate objects were now in
the fire-eater’s thoughts. The first was to leave the tedious sickbed
at Albany as soon as the coming of spring would make traveling
possible, and go to New Haven, to Hannah and the boys. The
second, and the important object, was the beautiful, the aristocratic
and wealthy Miss Elizabeth De Blois. She had rejected him when
a slur had been set upon his honor. But honor, rank and glorious
victory now belonged to the name he would offer her. In love or
war, he did not easily admit defeat.

i88

BENEDICT ARNOLD

In December, he received a letter from Mrs. Knox, who
had assisted his addresses in the first campaign. Lucy Knox belonged
to the earnest, emotional type of gossip, and was distinguished by a
loftiness of manner, and, in the opinion of many, an exaggerated
regard for social refinements. She had saturated herself in the sen-
timental romance of the period, and would wring it .out generously
for the benefit of her absent husband. “How does my dear, dear
Harry,” she would write. “What is he thinking of and how em-
ploy’d. Is he bustling in the busy world, or pensive and alone,
reflecting upon the unhappy situation in which he has left poor
me.” But when the drivel was over, she was able to reply to the
General’s inquiries on business matters clearly enough. She now
poured an offering of good wishes and congratulation for the hero
of Saratoga, and in conclusion ventured to remind him that the
trunk of gowns originally intended for the heavenly Miss De Blois,
was still in her keeping, and might she not, if General Arnold
intended disposing of them, have the first selection ?

A polite reply on behalf of General Arnold was returned by an
aide, Major David Solesbury Franks, a young Jewish merchant of
Montreal, who had been a rebel from the first outbreak and had lost
everything in the wreck of the invasion. He thanked the good lady
for her wishes, and assured her that General Arnold, if he disposed
of the contents of the trunk, would accord her the preference, but
could part with none of it until he came to Boston, a journey which
he intended shortly to undertake.

The journey, painful and slow, began with the first thaws. At
the end of March, Middletown, in his native state, greeted the hero
with a roar of thirteen guns, a parade of militia, a formal pro-
nouncement of welcome, graciously acknowledged by the invalid, a
hushed murmur from the people crowding round, “Oh, the poor
General,” and “God bless ye, sir.” At Middletown he rested for a
month, uncertain whether the fortunes of love would lead him on to
Boston or back to New Haven and the white mansion on Water
Street.

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 189

Fundamentally, Benedict Arnold in love was precisely the same
as Benedict Arnold in war or in business. Fundamentally, it was
simply a matter of fixing upon an object that would contribute to
the advance of his fortunes, and driving forcefully toward it. It was
not cold, for warmth and passion were always there, but it was
calculating. She. whom he might desire was offered no spiritual
union, for there was no ideal, no faith or structure of faiths on
which to found it. He had no far purpose, and no cry for immortal-
ity, he was not even superstitious. His love was material and defined,
not touched by the vague, glimmering brilliance of romance or
religion.

At this time, he had honor, glory, and the highest rank it was
possible, except by the deaths of other officers, for him to obtain. We
see him, for a time, seeking only to set these attainments upon a
firmer basis. Miss De Blois would bring him wealth, and, as he
never tired of announcing, his own resources had been seriously
depleted in his country’s service. She would add to his social pres-
tige, a luxury not needed in America, but for which his proud
heart yearned. Her family, to be sure, like most of the old aristoc-
racy, suffered from the taint of Toryism, and Gilbert De Blois, her
father, importer of hardware and liquors, vestryman of King’s
Chapel, was a banished loyalist. Betsy herself had been a favorite
with the young British officers before the evacuation. But the taint
had its practical side, for confiscation was in the air, and the family
should more readily agree to an alliance with a major-general of the
new era. And Betsy, finally, was beautiful and young, a child beside
her war-hardened suitor, whose letters reveal a trace of elderly con-
descension. In a carefully penned missive, he now renewed the
attack, love glittering through the phrases of a scrupulous formality.

“April 8th 1778

“Dear Madam,

“Twenty times have I taken up my pen to write to you, and as often has
my trembling hand refused to obey the dictates of my heart. A heart which
has often ben calm and serene amidst the clashing of Arms, and all the din

BENEDICT ARNOLD

190

and horrors of Warr, trembles with diffidence and the fear of giving offence
when it attempts to address you on a subject so Important to its happiness.
Long have I struggled to arace your heavenly Image from it. Neither time,
absence, misfortunes, nor your cruel Indifference have ben able to efface the
deep impression your Charms have made, and will you doom a heart so true,
so faithfull to languish in dispair? Shall I expect no returns to the most sincere,
ardent, and disinterested passion? Dear Betsy, suffer that heavenly Bosom
(which surely cannot know itself the cause of misfortune without a sym-
pathetic pang) to expand with Friendship at last and let me know my Fate.
If a happy one no man will strive more to deserve it; if on the contrary I am
doom’d to dispair, my latest breath will be to implore the blessing of Heaven
on the Idol, & only wish of my soul.

“Adieu,

“Dear Madam and belive me most sincerely,
“Your devoted Humble Servant,

“B.A”

It was wasted. Miss De Blois did not care a thin shilling for his
suit. But even had she expressed her rejection so baldly, the heart
"so true, so faithfull ’ 5 might still have ventured one last effort of
entreaty, more earnest and more warm.

“April 26th, 1778

“Dear Betsy,

“Had I imagined my letter would have occationed you a moment’s un-
easiness, I never ^should forgive myself for writing it, — You intreat me to
solicit no further for your affections; Consider Dear Madam when you urge
impossibilities I cannot Obey; as well might you wish me to exist without
breathing as cease to love you, and wish for a return of affection. — As your
intreaty does not amount to a positive Injunction and you have not forbid me
to hope, how can I decline soliciting your particular affections, on which the
whole happiness of my Life depends:

“A union of hearts I acknowledge is necessary to happiness, but give me
leave to observe that true and permanent happiness is seldom the effect of an
alliance form’d on a romantick passion when Fancy governs more than
Judgement.

“Friendship and esteem founded on the Merit of the object is the most
certain basis to build a lasting happiness upon, and when there is a Tender
and Ardent passion on one side, and Friendship and esteem on the other, the

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 191

heart must be callous to every tender sentiment if the taper of Love is not
lighted up at the Flame, which a series of reciprocal kindness and attention
will never suffer to expire.

“If Fame alows me any share of Merit, I am in a great measure indebted
for it to the Pure and exalted passion your Charms have Inspired me with,
which cannot admit of an unworthy thought or action, — A passion produc-
tive of good and Injurious to no one you must approve, and suffer me to
indulge.

“Pardon me Dear Betsy if I called you Cruel. If the eyes are an Index to
the Heart Love and Harmony must banish every Irregular passion from your
Heavenly Bosom.

“Dear Betsy I have Inclosed a letter to your Mama for your Papa and
have presum’d to Request his sanction to my addresses. May I hope for your
approbation? Let me beg of you to suffer your Heart If possible to expand
with a sensation more Tender than Friendship , — Consider the Consequences
before you determine. Consult your own happiness and if incompatible with
mine forget there is so unhappy a Wretch, for let me Perish if I would give
you one moment’s pain to procure the greatest Felicity to myself, whatever
my Fate may be my most ardent wish is for your happiness.

“I hope a line in answer will not be deem’d the least Infringement on the
Decorum due to your Sex, which I wish you strictly to observe.

“In the most anxious Suspence

“I am Dear Betsy unalterably yours

“B. Arnold.”

To be the object of a famous and victorious general’s adoration,
to be told that on the march and in the heat of battle he had been
inspired by her, must have been pleasing to this much admired
young lady. But for the heavenly Miss De Blois the taper of love
had already been lighted. And she still preferred Mr. Martin
Brimmer to the victorious general. The successful rival was a placid
young merchant of a well established German family, with a
kindly sense of humor, it seems, for after the war, when that de-
lightfully illiterate farm-laborer-school teacher-soldier, Elijah Fisher,
found himself hard put to for a living, he goodnaturedly gave him
some odd jobs in the garden at an unexpectedly large wage, “and
no complaint.”

192

BENEDICT ARNOLD

But to the consummation of Mr. Brimmer’s desire there was also
an obstacle, for Betsy’s mother was not anxious for a son-in-law. In
the face of his complete eligibility, she opposed the match. Judging
from her attitude toward her own exiled companion, she did not
consider a husband a necessary adjunct. The lovers planned an
elopement, according to tradition, but, at the moment when she
was to leap from her window into the wagonload of hay passing
beneath, Betsy’s courage failed her. And when at last a wedding at
King’s Chapel was attempted, Ann Coffin De Blois appeared in stern
fury and forbade it. Thus it was that Elizabeth De Blois never mar-'
ried, but lived, in comfort and single blessedness to the age of eighty-
two: “a straight, tall, elegant woman.”

With May’s warm sun above him, the wounded general was
borne south to New Haven. Thirteen thunderous salutes were
echoed back from the hills. The militiamen lined the streets, among
them, in their bright scarlet, his old comrades of the Governor’s
Guards, leading the deep huzzas. And proudly conscious, no doubt,
of the crowd that watched 1 them, Hannah and the boys, with a
flock of officials, civil and military, followed the litter into the house
on Water Street.

II. The Fighting General Considers his Purse.

Defeat, to the fighting General, even in love, urged only a more
determined advance. His resolve was to go as soon as possible to
the headquarters at Valley Forge. He had no intention of passing
a secluded convalescence at New Haven. He had no intention of
seeking a new command in the army, even had his wound permitted
it. Military rank and glory now supported the honor of Benedict
Arnold: but there was lacking that pecuniary foundation on which
a family of social eminence must rest. He waited at New Haven
only for the arrival of the effusive Mrs. Knox, who, no longer able
to bear the pangs of separation from her husband, was to accom-
pany him on the journey. His military family was now a small one.

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 193

Varick was at Fort Schuyler, in the hope of seeing active service.
Only two aides remained, the placid, gentle Franks, his character
now a trifle roughened by the habit which he retained through a
not undistinguished career of molding himself in the pattern of his
superiors, and Major Matthew Clarkson, a modest, quiet youth of
twenty, his hair falling in neat curls around the collar of his uni-
form, framing his fine features and clear eyes, his thin lips and
sharp, slightly receding chin. Clarkson had been shot in the throat
while gallantly rallying his men in a skirmish with Burgoyne’s
advance guard, had recovered in time to serve on Arnold’s staff
at Saratoga, and was later to become an important figure in his
native state of New York. With stately Lucy Knox seated beside
him in the chaise, and his aides riding behind, the wounded general
arrived at Valley Forge on the twentieth of May.

Among the hills around them, shaded now by the spring
foliage, lay the city of log huts in which the winter had been weath-
ered. Stone farmhouses were dotted here and there, homes now for
the general officers. The old forge, burned by British raiders of the
year before, lay in silent ruin between the precipitous walls of
Mount Misery and Mount Joy. Farther down the plunging creek,
were the headquarters house, the huts of the Lifeguard and the
shining river. The soldiers, in a strange variety of ragged clothing,
blanket coats, straw-stuffed moccasins, greasy cotton nightcaps or
old hats, lounged about, played ball, marched upon the drill ground
or stood guard upon their rusty arms. The Chevalier de Pont-
gibaud called them an “armed mob.” Wayne compared their ap-
pearance to two well-known characters of the Philadelphia streets.
Crazy Noddy and Paddy Frizzel. Powder horns, carved with quaint
designs or vacuous sentiments, bear evidence of how slowly the
weeks had passed:

“Help yourself to grog. I hope God will forgive me for passing my time
so foolishly.”

“The red coat who steals this horn

Will go to hel shures hes born.”

194

BENEDICT ARNOLD

The younger officers amused themselves in frivolous entertain-
ment, at barbecues, or other forms of “civil jollity,” as they were
pleased to call it. These consisted generally of getting drunk to the
music of fife and drum, munching lean beef, sucking bottles,
“t alkin g bawdy,” and slapping their military titles back and forth
with a freedom and gusto quite out of keeping with the conventions.

The more serious circle in the social life of the encampment ab-
sented themselves from these hilarities, the Commander-in-chief,
reserved and impressive, the affable and abstemious Greene, the
lean, sardonic Lee, but recently welcomed back into the army from
his captivity in New York, Steuben, whose careful work was making
a disciplined machine of the army. Lafayette, who had likewise
been wounded in the left leg, had no doubt a jest of courteous asso-
ciation with General Arnold. To which one must imagine General
Arnold replying that the enemy had honored him by according him
the same treatment as the Marquis, while Anthony Wayne, who had
always disliked Arnold, frowned, and the gray-haired little man
with the spectacles, General Gates, smiled weakly, and ponderous
Major-General William Alexander, Lord Stirling, laughed, because
it was what the gentlemen around him had done.

Lucy Knox, too, fitted intimately into her set: Mrs. Washington,
Mrs. Greene, Lady Kitty Stirling, and the other officers’ wives, who
met at the headquarters houses to drink tea and knit socks for
the soldiers. It must have been highly satisfactory to this good lady
to find herself associated with a countess. For every true patriot
scrupulously ignored the fact that the Earl of Stirling was not
really an earl at all. His Lordship was very sensitive on the subject.
It is related that when he was once engaged in the business of hang-
ing a spy, the poor wretch called continually on his Maker, “Oh
Lord, spare a sinner’s soul!”

“Hangman,” said the General sternly, “turn him off. I’ll have
no mercy on a spy.”

It was generally, and correctly, expected at headquarters, ' that
the enemy would abandon their dearly won conquest of the previ-

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 195

ous year and concentrate upon the defense of New York. In this
expectation the Commander-in-chief offered to General Arnold the
military governorship of Philadelphia. Two reasons lead one to
suppose that the honor was not unsought: Arnold was so eminently
unsuited for the post, and it fitted so well with his mercantile proj-
ects. The office itself was an important one only for the few days
before the civil government would take control. After that period, it
was essentially unnecessary and sure to involve the undefined rela-
tions between civil and military authority. Arnold, furthermore,
lacked what was most needed, tact and a sympathetic, disinterested
view of the civil power. The city was the financial center of the
states, and, besides its opportunities for legitimate business, con-
tained large stores of merchandise of doubtful ownership or held
by persons of uncertain loyalty, the seizure of which might be a
source of great profit. Washington could not refuse the appoint-
ment without a definite expression of distrust, and he valued his
fighting general too highly to wound that delicate sense of honor
and of honorable intentions.

Early in June there appeared at the camp a certain Robert
Sheweil, Jr., seeking a pass to allow a ship in which he was in-
terested, then lying at Philadelphia, to enter a port held by the
United States. He was regarded as a suspicious character, and or-
dered out of the encampment. But before he left, he had met Gen-
eral Arnold, who entered into some sort of confidential agreement
and supplied the protection. “In full confidence of their upright
intentions, I do hereby grant,” and so forth. The schooner Charming
Nancy, William Moore, master, with her cargo of linens, woolens,
salt, glass and other wares, shortly after rode out to sea, having au-
thority to enter whatever port might offer the best returns. The
company behind the venture, Sheweil, William Shurtliff, William
Constable, James Seagrove, were men whose political allegiance it
was diffi cult to determine. Some called them Whig, some Tory.
They belonged, in short, to that class which was as willing to be
under one government as another and to whom the war was only

BENEDICT ARNOLD

196

a hindrance to trade. Among their business associates, one fin ds,
henceforth. General Benedict Arnold.

In Philadelphia, where it had passed a most enjoyable winter.
His Majesty’s army was preparing for its departure. Pierre Eugene
Du Simitiere, the ingenious Swiss artist, gossip and collector of
curiosities, who was well acquainted with almost everyone, called
on one of the most popular of His Majesty’s officers. Major Jo hn
Andre, whose quarters were in Benjamin Franklin’s house. He
found the young man in the act of packing up the better part of
Dr. Franklin’s library to take away with him. He was shocked at
the spectacle and delivered a little lecture contrasting it with the
considerate conduct of General Knyphausen. The young man paid
no attention whatever to these admonitions; it was probably not
the first time that Pierre Eugene Du Simitiere had been snubbed.

At Valley Forge, another artist-philosopher, Captain Charles
Willson Peale, was painting a miniature of General Arnold. Even
Washington grew irksome sitting for his portrait, and General
Arnold was in a bad temper. When the painter placidly remarked
his eagerness to be in Philadelphia and his intention of entering as
soon as the enemy were out of it, the General testily replied that
it was his authority to take possession of the city, and all the stores
belonging to the enemy, and that he was determined that no one
should enter until he was ready. Captain Peale hastened to head-
quarters where an aide of Washington calmed him with assurances.
General Arnold already conducted his office with a tactless bluntness
whose fruits were to be distrust and hostility.

On the morning of Friday, the nineteenth of June, General
Arnold, with Colonel Jackson’s regiment of Massachusetts Conti-
nentals, entered the city, whither a great number of the temporary
exiles were returning. They found it a soiled and dreary town,
fences and deserted houses ripped to pieces for firewood and the
less traveled' streets reeking with filth. General Arnold, in the spirit
of incoming administrations, issued orders for a thorough cleansing.
In accordance with a resolve of Congress and his instructions, he

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 197

ordered that all stores of merchandise be declared, and forbade the
removal, transfer or sale of any goods until the identity and alle-
giance of the owners should be proven. The city and public markets
were pro claim ed open, and General Arnold proceeded to establish
himself in the finest mansion in the city, formerly the home of
Governor Richard Penn, recently the headquarters of General Howe,
and later to be the residence of President Washington. It was a
spacious brick mansion, with the adjacent conveniences of a walled
garden, a coachhouse, a stable and a warehouse.

Behind its pretentious white portal, guarded by the smartly
presented musket of a Continental soldier, a new commercial estab-
lishment came into being. Franks and his chief had already agreed
on a partnership, and Franks had been the first in the city, bearing
unsigned instructions from Arnold for the purchase of European
and East India goods to any amount, a promise to see to the pay-
ment, and a strict charge that he preserve the greatest secrecy in the
matter. On Monday, two merchants of Philadelphia entered the
firm. James Mease, Clothier-General to the army, and William
West, his deputy, had been sent into the city to assist Arnold, and
forthwith signed a private agreement with him that all goods in-
cluded in the public purchases but not needed for the army should
be sold for their equal benefit. Thus, with all trade but his own
temporarily prohibited, an unlimited field for wholesale purchases
at a low price, and broad opportunities for confiscation, the general
was, in a more modern economic term, “sitting pretty.”

In addition to these activities, his love of speculation led him into
a number of privateering ventures, and he did not consider it amiss
to draw equipment for his vessels from the public stores. Parson
Weems, in the famous Life of Washington, presents a vivid descrip-
tion of Arnold, baffled at last in his embezzlements. Honest Colonel
Melcher foils die villain in an attempt to retail public property for
his own profit, whereat Arnold turns black with rage and hurls a
terrible threat against the placid face of Heaven.

“Damn the rascals!” he cries. “PH remember them for it! Sam-

198 BENEDICT ARNOLD

son-like, I’ll shake the pillars of their liberty temple about their
ears.”

Under Arnold’s mercenary touch, the thrilling story of the sloop
Active assumed the sordid proportions of a legal and financial
tangle. This vessel, rolling up from Jamaica to New York with a
cargo of rum and coffee, carried four American seamen, prisoners,
but forced to help work the ship. These four fellows, off the coast
of Jersey, blockaded their captors below deck and steered for the
shore. The British below melted their pewter spoons into bullets,
forced up the hatches, and swept the deck with their fire. To this
the Americans, although their leader lay now severely wounded,
replied with a swivel gun, hurling heavy charges down the com-
panionway. Unable to gain the deck, the besieged crew cut a hole
in the ship’s stern and wedged her rudder. The Americans had
still the advantage, however, for they held possession of the galley.
Hunger below forced a compromise: the rudder was released and
the four men on deck agreed to steer to within sight of land, and
there abandon their prize and make for the shore in one of her
boats. While this agreement was being carried out, two Pennsyl-
vania privateers closed in on the vessel and brought her to Philadel-
phia. A jury awarded three-quarters of the prize money to the
privateers and one-quarter to the four sailors. The four sailors, who
were Connecticut men, appealed to Arnold, and Arnold, in con-
junction with another merchant, purchased their claim and carried
an appeal to Congress. Congress reversed the decision and awarded
all the money to the cause of the four claimants. The state, however,
refused to recognize the reversal and withheld payment, and its
resistance, drawn out over a period of thirty years, was productive
of endless argument and even armed conflict before the national
authority was at last victorious.

It is impossible to accept all the charges of petty fraud and pecu-
lation that subsequent animosity lodged against the mercantile
Governor of Philadelphia. With him, as in the bucket shops of a
later period, principles meant nothing, but there was a point at

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 199

which the smallness of the profit and the greatness of the risks
brought unrecognized methods into the class of bad business policy.
He was not, as has been asserted, lacking in sense of proportion,
save in the common fault of placing himself in the center of all
things. One must also consider that Arnold, with many of his
associates, had been brought to the verge of financial ruin in his
country’s service. Many officers were leaving the army because
the depreciation of the paper currency in which they were paid
left them unable to support their families. Arnold’s activities were
not clearly detrimental to the cause. Their evil lay in their effect
upon its morale.

This morale was already sinking dangerously. The Conway ca-
bal, after a premature revelation, had been denounced by its leaders,
Gates the loudest of all, but the discontent still lingered, and there
were still, in a Congress deserted by its higher talent, a host of
lesser intrigues. The outburst of enthusiasm for the French alliance
had been followed by a loss of energy. Lafayette, Duportail and other
foreigners, full of zeal and principles, were shocked by the con-
spicuous lack of patriotism. Men were disgusted by the pettiness
and quibbling into which they were drawn. In such a mingling of
desperate patriotism and contemptuous disregard, of factional jeal-
ousies and the distorted imaginations of war time, a popular dis-
approval was inevitably focused on the prosperous, presumptuous
governor of Philadelphia.

The trouble had started immediately, with the proclamation
closing the shops. The act brought a general sense of outrage,
directed against Arnold partly because he was the agent and partly
because of a theory, well grounded but lacking evidence, that he
was making the best use of his enviable position. One gentleman,
who had left fifty thousand dollars with the general to pay for
clothing and stores, had a distressing feeling that the goods had been
taken by seizure and the money pocketed. Business, after a week of
jealous suspense, was declared open, and the governing body of the
state, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, which had

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BENEDICT ARNOLD

issued complaints, was invited to dinner at headquarters. Suspicion,
however, lived and grew, and evidence was inevitably collected for
its support. And if it was obnoxious to see the Governor growing
rich from his office, the matter was no whit softened by the pre-
tentious manner in which he bore his station.

III. The Taper of Love is Lighted.

General Knox no more than expressed a current American opin-
ion when he reprimanded Lucy for one of her manifestations of
social superiority. “Take care, my love,” he cautioned her, “of per-
mitting your disgust to the Connecticut people to escape your lips.
. . . The want of refinement which you speak to speak of is, or will
be, the salvation of America, for refinement of manners introduces
corruption and venality.” And the opinion, so it seemed, was never
more clearly proven than in the life of war-time Philadelphia.

It was a pretty little town in brick and marble, surrounded by
the country seats of its merchants, a graceful mansion commanding
every spacious view. But it was not only in politics that the Quaker
influence was waning. The neat, prim little city was learning to
enjoy itself in a cosmopolitan manner. The British officers had
taught it to consider the refinements, and their Meschianza had
shown it the glamor of the Gothic revival. New characters ap-
peared, portrayed by the satirist in verse. The merchant’s daughter,
Miss Goggle, or the Spruce Street Prude, was beginning to talk of
f amil y connections.

“She’s always plum’d on what she calls her birth,

Tells o’er the sums her peddling father’s worth.”

Miss Kitty Cut-ct-dash, the Arch Street Flirt, promenades before
awed spectators,

“. . . studies fashions with religious care,

And scoffs religion with a scornful air.

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 201

When full equipt she rambles through the town.

Or with her aunt some character runs down.

Or with an air important through the shops,

She cheapens fans, and talks with ruffled fops.”

The ruffled fop was himself a novelty,

“His scarlet coat, that everyone may see,

Mark and observe, and know the fool is he.

With buttons garnish’d sparkling in a row
On sleeves and breasts and skirts to make a show,

His waistcoat too with tinsel shining o’er,

His cravat knotted in a bow before,

His empty head with powder loaded deep.

Wings to the same of formal cut and sweep.

With three-cock’d hat and loop and button bright,

And open mouth to show his teeth are white.”

Ladies’ headdresses were rising like the prices. “ ’Tis surprising,”
a congressman moaned to his wife, “how they fix such loads of
trumpery on their polls. The Whig ladies seem as fond of them as
the others. But you know, my dear, I have odd, old-fashioned no-
tions.” The gentlemen thought of little but speculative opportuni-
ties, which they washed down with frivolous social gayety. Money
came easily, and the patriots who asked questions and made rules,
were none too popular. Washington lectured ponderously on the
menace of the situation. Franklin was as disgusted as if salt had
been put on his strawberries.

The crippled general, still unable to walk without assistance,
needed a carriage, but his critics saw no necessity for the handsome
coach in which they watched him pass, or liveried footmen, instead
of friends, to offer him their arms. When the French ambassador
and his suite arrived in July, 1778, it was the Governor who enter-
tained them, the first of a series of lavish affairs. His keen, proud
nature enjoyed it all immensely. It was a vivid contrast to the hard
and perilous road by which he had come. He might have been a

202

BENEDICT ARNOLD

medieval tyrant, selfish, sensual, flaunting his power before the
people. He had a dislike for moderation or a far-sighted, tactful
abstinence. The fortune of war had filled his purse, and he emptied
it as freely for his friends. And now, in addition to his own family,
he was supporting the orphan children of Warren, whose kindly
appreciation he had never forgotten, nor wished, perhaps, others to
forget. But through it all, he was still the same self-contained, im-
perious mystery, respected and hated. A duel was among the
r um ors for a while, a citizen said to have been seriously wounded.
There was certainly no shortage of eligible opponents.

One finds him, in company, seated, the wounded leg stretched
out upon another chair, wearing a handsome civilian dress, his
rank indicated by a scarlet ribbon crossing the ruffled lace of
his shirt. One might find him surrounded by a flock of admiring
females as he dandles Franklin’s little granddaughter. “She gives
such old-fashioned smacks,” the fond mother wrote. “General
Arnold says he would give a good deal to have her for a school-
mistress to teach the young ladies how to kiss.” One might find
him explaining to some gentlemen the working of his electrical
machine, or reading passages from the latest acquisition to his
library. The ubiquitous Du Simitiere was a visitor, and succeeded in
persuading the General to sit for his portrait. His old ally, Silas
Deane, whom a showy style of living suited very well, returned
from France and Arnold’s house became his home. And later, in
1779, he was joined by the tall, blonde lady, his sister, and the
three healthy, turbulent boys.

Unfortunately for his reputation, General not only refused to dis-
like, but included in his invitations persons of doubtful patriotism.
The more outspoken Tories had been mobbed or hated out of the
country, but there remained many, unobtrusive, but none the less
decidedly disapproving. Many of them had supported the first move-
ment for a redress of grievances. But they could not swallow the
Declaration of Independence, and they saw the French alliance as
but the exchange of a bad master for a worse one. Arnold himself

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 203

distrusted the French, and was not averse to expressing his low
opinion of the race. These Tories, moreover, were the aristocracy,
and were the most useful mercantile connections. And they, in turn,
found in Arnold one who would guard them against government
interference.

“Even our military gentlemen,” a gossiping lady confided, “are
too liberal to make any distinction between Whig and Tory Ladyes.
If they make any, it is in favour of the latter. Such, strange as it may
seem, is the way those things are conducted at present in this city.
It originates at headquarters, and that I may make some apology
for such strange conduct, I must tell you that Cupid has given our
little General a more mortal wound than all the hosts of Britons
could— Miss Peggy Shippen is the fair one.”

While the fair one, like the heavenly Miss De Blois, belonged to
a family reputed to be Tory, the distinction, for two reasons, was a
narrow one. In the first place, her father, Edward Shippen, with his
strong, kindly face and exacting rationality, shared the attitude of
many another London trained provincial lawyer, an attitude of
sympathy for the cause of the colonies, but unable to support so
radical and illegal a solution as independence. To him the patriot
army was nevertheless “our army,” and he felt proud of its victories.
One daughter was already married to a young rebel officer. He was
not strongly distrusted, and after the war held office under the
state, rising at last to chief justice of its supreme court. In the
second place, Peggy, at nineteen, was quite innocent of any political
theory whatever.

Peggy enters the history of our country in April, ’seventy-five,
trotting from one shop to another in vain search for a blue and
white coffee pot, tea being at that time out of fashion and coffee
pots much in demand. And if the match which General Arnold
sought could offer no financial advantage, it would bring him a slim
and graceful figure, a very pretty, submissive face, crowned by a
fortune in carefully nurtured yellow curls. There were innocent,
mischievous gray eyes, and a sensitive, insipid mouth to answer for

204 BENEDICT ARNOLD

them, a weak chin, a weak, sharp little nose, and an air that was
not only delicate, but proud. Too timid and guileless a creature for
any proficiency in the social arts and affectations, her whole con-
scious existence was the sum of a few pleasant social contacts. She
was not a thoughtful child, and the discursory religion of the time
meant nothing to her. And yet to her a submission to some strong,
firm guidance was essential. It was on her father that she relied.
Her mother had but a perfunctory affection and no influence.

Now she was captured by a lover, a crippled, war-worn hero, a
dark-haired gentleman with a warmly florid face, an aquiline nose
and d omin eering chin and brow, with rich, persuasive lips and the
boldest eyes that she had ever seen: a forceful, commanding lover,
and a great man.

“Oh! All ye powers of love,” Elizabeth Tilghman exclaimed at
the end of a lively line of gossip for Peggy’s sister, “I had like to
have forgot the gentle Arnold, where is he, how does he, and when
is he like to convert our little Peggy. They say she intends to sur-
render soon. I thought the fort would not hold out long. W ell after
all there is nothing like perseverance and a regular attack.”

A regular attack it was, of course, in all the strictest conven-
tionality. And the same verbiage, hurled vainly against the bosom of
Miss De Blois, now entered the softer breast of Peggy. Friendship
and esteem Miss De Blois had acknowledged. So did Miss P.
Shippen. And the eloquent protest which had served for one, would
serve as well for the other.

“Dear Madam:

“Twenty times have I taken up my pen to write to you, and as often has
my trembling hand refused to obey the dictates of my heart — a heart which,
though calm and serene amid the clashing of arms and all the din and horrors
of war, trembles with diffidence and the fear of giving offence when it attempts
to address you on a subject so important to its happiness. Dear Madam, your
charms have lighted up a flame in my bosom which can never be extinguished;
your heavenly image is too deeply impressed ever to be effaced. My passion is
not founded on personal charms only: that sweetness of disposition and good*

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 205

ness of heart — that sentiment and sensibility which so strongly mark the char-
acter of the lovely Miss P. Shippen — render her amiable beyond expression,
and will ever retain the heart she has once captivated.

“On you alone my happiness depends. And will you doom me to languish
in despair? Shall I expect no return to the most sincere, ardent and disinter-
ested passion? Do you feel no pity in your gentle bosom for the man who
would die to make you happy? May I presume to hope it is not impossible
I may make a favorable impression on your heart? Friendship and esteem
you acknowledge. Dear Peggy! suffer that heavenly bosom (which cannot
know itself the cause of pain without a sympathetic pang) to expand with a
sensation more soft, more tender than friendship. A union of hearts is un-
doubtedly necessary to happiness. But give me leave to observe that true and
permanent happiness is seldom the effect of an alliance founded on a romantic
passion, where fancy governs more than judgment. Friendship and esteem,
founded on the merit of the object, is the most certain basis to found a lasting
happiness upon. And when there is a tender and ardent passion on one side,
and friendship and esteem on the other, the heart (unlike yours) must be
callous to every tender sentiment if the taper of love is not lighted up at the
flame.

“I am sensible your prudence, and the affection you bear your amiable and
tender parents, forbid your giving encouragement to the addresses of anyone
without their approbation. Pardon me, dear madam, for disclosing a passion
I could no longer confine in my tortured bosom. I have presumed to write
to your papa, and have requested his sanction to my addresses. Suffer me to
hope for your approbation. Consider before you doom me to misery, which I
have not deserved but by loving you too extravagantly. Consult your own
happiness, and, if incompatible, forget there is so unhappy a wretch; for may
I perish if I would give you one moment’s inquietude to purchase the greatest
possible felicity to myself! Whatever my fate may be, my most ardent wish is
for your happiness, and my latest breath will be to implore the blessings of
Heaven on the idol and only wish of my soul.

“Adieu, dear madam, and believe me unalterably your sincere admirer and
devoted humble servant,

“B. Arnold.

“September 25, 1778.

“Miss Peggy Shippen.”

“My fortune is not large,” the fire-eater informed her father,
“but sufficient (not to depend upon my expectations) to make us

20 6 BENEDICT ARNOLD

both happy. I neither expect nor wish one with Miss S. My public
character is well known; my private one is, I hope, irreproachable. If
I am happy in your approbation of my proposals of an alliance, I
shall most w illing ly accede to any you may please to make consistent
with the duty I owe to three lovely children. Our difference in po-
litical sentiments will, I hope, be no bar to my happiness. I flatter
myself the time is at hand when our. unhappy contests will be at
an end, and peace and domestic happiness be restored to everyone.”

Edward Shippen did not, in his natural conservatism, approve
the match. He was a cautious father, and had forbidden his daugh-
ters to take their places as ladies of the Meschianza, believing the
cost um es they were expected to wear immodest. There was talk in
the family of a conditional engagement. But the only basis on which
it could rest was the wounded leg, and that, as Peggy affirmed to
everyone, would soon be well. After she had been caught in the
fascination of that imperious face, after it had come close enough
to show her the fine veins that deepened its color, and she had
seen the lips opening in a smile as he drew and held her in a kiss,
after that there was no retreat. She was a nervous child and the
gentle attempts to explain the unromantic side only brought fits
of hysteria and proved to her family the futility of resistance.

In November, with this ominous alliance to a Tory family a
matter for common gossip, Joseph Reed was elected to the Presi-
dency of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. Joseph
Reed, with his long, ingenuous face, handsome but for the obtru-
siveness of a large, straight nose, had been Secretary to Washington
and Adjutant-General of the army, had served with distinction in the
field, and now came into office determined to make Philadelphia
a Whig city.

As the money and the morale of the patriot cause were sinking,
more and more vehement measures were considered necessary to
inspire the proper attitude of self-sacrificing devotion. Even Robert
Morris incurred the thorough displeasure of Reed and his group
by selling flour at a profit in time of scarcity. They were demanding

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 207

a patriotic form of bankruptcy, with which it was difficult for
merchants to sympathize. It was the Governor of the city whom
they saw as the greatest menace, as the conflict between an aristo-
cratic and greedy military ruler and the civil authority of the
people. All the fears that American democracy might fall, as other
democracies had fallen, urged on the struggle.

As for the Governor, he was easily exasperated by courts and
congresses. Lafayette had proposed an elaborate plan of Canadian
invasion, and late in the fall of ’seventy-eight Washington had de-
clared his disapproval of it, verbally, to Congress. It was his opinion
that France would not reconquer her old empire and then great-
heartedly turn it all over to her allies. He was then, as later, fearful
of entanglements. The tide of invasion had reached its flood in the
whirling, icy shadows and the flame and thunder that closed around
the Sault au Matelot, and though it continued to flow again and
again, it was ever more weakly. The North, with its riches in wheat
and fur, was lost, and General Arnold’s own lingering hope of a new
effort vanished, for it was vain without the aid of France and France
was distrusted. The result of his disappointment was to increase the
importance of Philadelphia’s pecuniary opportunities.

The sudden acquisition of greatness had naturally heightened
his self-esteem and desire for self-assertion. Nor was he well enough
established financially to take a detached view of the impending
conflicts at Philadelphia, had he so desired. With him, of course, it
was entirely a matter of personal enmities, and he never sought
to conciliate an enemy. The British had attempted to buy Reed
for ten thousand guineas and a peerage, to which his reply had been
that even if he were worth purchasing, the King of Great Britain
was not rich enough to do it. Arnold helped spread the report that
the President of the Executive Council had welcomed the pro-
posals. “Arnold, the Commandant at Philadelphia,” one English
officer wrote to another, “has quarreled with the Executive Council,
threatens to murder Reed the Govr.”

“Reed the Govr.” had taken every precaution to avoid a personal

208

BENEDICT ARNOLD

aspect to the contest. Arnold, on the other hand, contemptuous of
their evidence, outspokenly conscious, as ever, of the uprightness of
his intentions, sought to appear as the victim of a jealous hatred. He
seized eagerly upon a scandal that Reed had once thought of making
his peace with the crown, and spread further rumors of traitorous
designs. Of the General’s staff, Franks was wisely noncommittal,
but Clarkson, who had probably not much else to occupy his mind,
appeared in the papers in defense of his chief, and boldly snubbed
and huffed the inquisitors until he was reported to Congress by the
outraged magistracy. Cautiously, sedulously, President Reed, Secre-
tary Timothy Matlack and their associates, gathered evidence, keep-
ing the matter all the while well before the public, and apprising
Arnold, from time to time, of what was being learned about him.

The closing of the shops and the General’s commercial interests
disturbed them most. In closing the shops, as they failed to recog-
nize, he had merely obeyed an order of Congress but in his subse-
quent business concerns, they believed they could prove him not
only defrauding the cause he served, but in treasonable communi-
cation with the enemy.

In January, ’seventy-nine, they discovered that Arnold had ar-
ranged with Deputy Quartermaster-General John Mitchill that a
brigade of twelve wagons should cross New Jersey to Egg Harbor
and return with private property. The General had excused the
irregularity of the proposal on the ground that the goods were in
danger of capture by the enemy, and agreed to pay the cost of the
hauling. It was discovered that Wagon Master Jesse Jordan had
been instructed to take orders from no less a person than Captain
William Moore, of the schooner Charming Nancy, who had super-
intended the carriage and the delivery of the goods to the warehouses
of various merchants of Arnold’s acquaintance in the city. There
had followed a dispute between Arnold and Mitchill on the pay-
ment, on which the Supreme Executive Council had seized with
delight. Mitchill, interrogated, was all trepidation and excuses.
Arnold was the slave to duty, saving valuable wares from the grasp

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 209

of the enemy, all willingness to pay for the use of the wagons. They
determined that he should pay, and to the full. Jesse Jordan was
unearthed from the fastnesses of Chester County, and found him-
self the plaintiff in a suit to recover £g 6 o from the new business
firm, a sum which, if extracted, might be hoped to put a quietus on
its activities. But the suit dragged on from February to October,
when Jesse Jordan, after the fashion of wagoners, died by violence
and without heirs.

There was every reason to believe that the goods brought from
Egg Harbor had come by sea from New York, and the pursuers
believed they had discovered evidence of a treasonable correspon-
dence. A Miss Levy, suspected of being an emissary of the enemy,
had gone through the lines on a pass from Arnold. Arnold was
asked to explain, and refused. It was discovered that in New York
Miss Levy had gone, by Arnold’s direction, to the house of a Mr.
Templeton. Again an explanation was demanded. The fire-eater
replied curtly that the matter involved business of importance to the
United States and that Mr. Templeton’s personal safety would be
endangered if the facts became known. It was customary in the revo-
lutionary armies for the general officers personally to employ their
own secret service agents, but, as the Council very well knew, Arnold
was without even the prospect of a command, and should have no
need for private intelligence.

While the civil authorities were prodding and questioning and
erecting what they considered a most damning fabric of evidence,
the people of the city, who might normally have had a partiality for
the military hero, were taking an interest in the chase. The dread of
lurking enemies, so prominent in the psychology of war, had risen
to intensity with the return of the national government to the city.
An editor suggested that the right hand and right side of the face
of every Tory be dyed black, that his neighbors might know him.
Since the Executive Council insisted on remaining steadfastly within
the law, rioting mobs took the matter in their own hands. General
Arnold was becoming the most conspicuous member of a hated class.

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BENEDICT ARNOLD

Arnold was not only clearly sympathetic with the Tories, he
appeared as a blatant example o£ all that was offensively aristo-
cratic. His coach, his servants, his ostentatious hospitality, his air
of imperious aloofness, were flagrantly unrepublican. Three months
after the tyrant’s ascension at Philadelphia, Washington had ordered
the return of his regiment of Continentals to the army. Arnold
delayed in spite of repeated demands until the Council could raise
him a force of three hundred militia, a slow business, willing as the
state was at that time to give him the power, as a protection against
mob violence. The difference between trained soldiery and militia
soon appeared. The militia, alertly conscious of their status as free-
men, as the equals of any of their countrymen and the superiors
of the less enlightened inhabitants of the globe, objected to standing
sentry duty at General Arnold’s doors when there was no danger
against which to guard and when the service included frequent
abrupt demands from Franks or some other of the household to
fetch and carry and run errands in the town.

To the hostility of the Council and the populace, finally, was
added that of the national Congress. Congress, viewing with horror
the depravity of its capital city, was beginning to legislate on morals
and religion, “to prevent stage playing and such kinds of diversions,
as are productive of Vice, Idleness, Dissipation and a general De-
pravity of Principals and manners.”

“You must know,” Samuel Adams wrote in sour dudgeon at this
time, “that in humble imitation, as it would seem, of the example
of the British Army, some of the Officers of ours have condescended
to act on the Stage; which others, and one of Superior Rank, were
pleased to countenance with their Presence.”

Arnold further incurred the disfavor of the honorable members
through his association with Silas Deane. In 1778, Deane had re-
turned from his mission to France, proud of his work. Arriving at
Paris in 1776 without a friend or even a knowledge of the language,
Lafayette, de Kalb, and a host of foreign officers, many of whom
were not so conspicuously welcome, had been introduced through

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 211

him to the American armies. His negotiations brought into being the
mysterious Hortalez and Company, under the suave and eloquent
Beaumarchais, through whom had come the arms and clothing
without which Burgoyne would never have been conquered. He had
made two mistakes: he had been so blind as to urge that the
pompous general, Frederick Ferdinand, Count Broglie, be given an
enormous salary, the title of Prince and the place of Washington as
Commander-in-chief. And he had been so honest as to insist that the
bill of Hortalez and Company be paid. Rumors were abroad that the
supplies were a gift from France, and the bill which Deane pre-
sented on his arrival a scheme for personal enrichment more fla-
grant than any of those of which Arnold was suspected. There was
plenty of graft in the business but that was under the attention of
Beaumarchais. And for all the evidence to the contrary. Congress
held to the comfortable belief that the supplies were a gift and
Deane a scoundrel.

Deane had returned a widower, and, heedless of the perils of
the friendship, had accepted Arnold’s hospitality at headquarters.
Reed had met him at the City Tavern and warned him not to lodge
at Arnold’s house, and had later advised him that to continue to
associate with Arnold and Robert Morris and the other merchants
of suspected loyalty would lose him the support of the Pennsylvania
delegation in any vote whatsoever. The contest had become furiously
bitter by the fall of ’seventy-eight, Thomas Paine leading the pursuit
of Deane. In December, young Clarkson replied in the Pennsylvania
Packet, under the disarming pseudonym of “Plain Truth,” to the
attacks of Paine. Paine wormed the author’s identity from the
printer and replied in furious literary gusts, threatening a suit for
libel if the youth did not keep silence. This Clarkson, they fumed,
is a Scotch notary who thinks he has, under his wealthy patron,
Robert Morris, the nation in his talons. Clarkson found himself the
object of the same acrid defamation that was overwhelming Deane,
but continued boldly in the fight. Poor Deane grew pathetic toward
the last in his pleas for justice. And even when Congress had ao-

212

BENEDICT ARNOLD.

knowledged that the supplies from France were not a gift, they had
so co mmi tted themselves to the belief that Deane was a rascal that
he was denied even the money owed him for his services and ex-
penses, and he departed, in a few months, penniless and hopeless,
across the sea.

One other group looked forward to the discomfiture of the mili-
tary Governor of the city. This was the old coterie of the Conway
Cabal, General Mifflin its leading spirit, still nursing a lingering
jealousy of the Commander-in-chief. For Washington was still, as
he. had always been, the friend and patron of Arnold. On him the
fire-eater’s disgrace would be reflected.

The enemies of Washington, the enemies of Deane and of a
debt to France, the enemies of military power and the spirit of
autocracy, all were united in avid hostility to the scowling little
Commandant. Gleefully into the uproar came John Brown of
Pittsfield. “Can assure your honr.,” he confided to Reed, “I am
extremely happy to hear that so great a Villain is at last detected.”
He sent copies of his own vitriolic publications, gloating over the
prospect of his enemy’s discomfiture. These, under the cryptic signa-
ture, “T.G.” were relayed to the citizens by Timothy Matlack.
“When I meet your carriage in the streets, and think of the splendor
in which you live and revel, of the settlement which it is said you
have proposed in a certain case, and of the decent frugality neces-
sarily used by other officers of the army, it is impossible to avoid
the question: From whence have these riches flowed if you did not
plunder Montreal?”

Early in February, the chase was in the open, hot and close. The
Council had the pleasure of announcing to the startled populace
that General Arnold, in accordance with previous suspicions, had
left the city, “on a Pretence of private Business.” “The necessity of
preserving the Dignity & Security of civil government,” they pro-
claimed, “& guarding the good people of these States against all
Abuses of Power,” had induced them, though with great reluctance,
to take action on the misconduct of General Arnold. Eight charges

A BRITISH BIUGADII’R

Vrom a vuntampurary engraving
of Gunvrtd Arnold

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 213

were published in the papers and sent to the legislatures of the
thirteen states.

Listed first, was the safe conduct to the Charming Nancy, then
the closing of the shops, the imposing of menial offices on freemen,
the delicate matter of the sloop Active, the appropriation of the
wagons, the pass to Miss Levy, the “indecent and disrespectful re-
fusal” to pay the sum demanded for the use of the wagons, and,
finally, a charge of neglecting the friends of liberty in preference
to their suspected enemies.

“News of the day,” Christopher Marshall jotted in his diary for
the eighth of February, “is that General Arnold has left Philada.
and gone over to the English.” The General had indeed left the
city. He had already obtained permission to resign the command of
Philadelphia. He was hoping for a grant of land from the state of
New York, somewhere in the northwest, near the gateway to
Canada, where he might retire from the public service and reign in
feudal dignity and power, and it was on this business that he had
departed. He was beginning also to consider the advantages which
a change of allegiance might offer. It was a daring speculation, and
daring speculations were to his taste.

On the eighth of February, Major Clarkson published an in-
dignant complaint that the charges should have been promulgated
in so extraordinary a manner. It was obvious that die Council was
seeking to turn public opinion against the military hero. Arnold
was in a black fury. He instantly demanded a court-martial to
cleanse his honor of the stain. An officer more sure of his position
would have made the demand long before. He opened his heart to
Peggy.

“Camp at Raritan, Febrary 8th, 1779.

“My Dearest Life:

“Never did I so ardently long to see or hear from you as at this instant.
I am all impatience and anxiety to know how you do; six days’ absence with-
out hearing from my dear Peggy is intolerable. Heavens! What must I have
suffered had I continued my journey — the loss of happiness for a few dirty

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BENEDICT ARNOLD

acres. I can almost bless the villainous roads, and more villainous men, who
oblige me to return. I am heartily tired with my journey, and almost so with,
human nature. I daily discover so much baseness and ingratitude among man-
kind that I almost blush at being o£ the same species, and could quit the
stage without regret was it not for some gentle, generous souls like my dear
Peggy, who still retain the lively impression of their Maker’s image, and who,
with smiles of benignity and goodness, make all happy around them. Let me
beg of you not to suffer the rude attacks on me to give you one moment’s
uneasiness; they can do me no injury. I am treated with the greatest politeness
by General Washington and the officers of the army, who bitterly execrate
Mr. Reed and the Council for their villainous attempt to injure me. They have
advised me to proceed on my journey. The badness of the roads will not per-
mit, was it possible to support an absence of four weeks, for in less time I could
not accomplish it. The day after to-morrow I leave this, and hope to be made
happy by your smiles on Friday evening; ’till then all nature smiles in vain;
for you alone, heard, felt and seen, possess my every thought, fill every sense
and pant in every vein.

“Clarkson will send an express to meet me at Bristol; make me happy by
one line to tell me you are so; please to present my best respects to your mama
and the family. My prayers and best wishes attend my dear Peggy. Adieu!
and believe me, sincerely and affectionately thine,

“B. Arnold.”

The Council, dealing with an officer of the United States, consid-
ered the proper procedure an appeal to the national legislature. A
committee of Congress examined the charges and, in the middle
of March, reported that the first three and the fifth, the pass to
the Nancy, the closing of the stores, the demeanment of free citi-
zens and the use of the wagons, must be decided by court-martial,
that the matter of the Active was for the civil courts, and that in
the others they could find no evidence of guilt. General Arnold
breathed a sigh of relief, declared the affair settled to his satisfac-
tion, and resigned the command of the city. But the Council was
not through with him yet. Pennsylvania was a powerful state.
The army would be in a sad way without her wagon brigades, and
in this matter of transportation General Arnold had particularly
offended. A joint committee of Congress and Council met, and,

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 215

on April third, recommended a court-martial on the first, second,
third and fifth charges.

A week later, with this threatening cloud above them, Peggy
and her general were married. At her father’s house, on the evening
of Thursday, the eighth of April, the ceremony was performed
with befitting unction. Ladies and gentlemen, in the colorful
fashions of the day and the occasion, and a few copiously arrayed
in fants waited beneath the glistening candelabra in a murmur of
voices and a faint odor of delicately perfumed powders. And then,
in a sudden silence of the voices, and a rustling of full white silk,
Peggy appears upon the stairway and descends among them, like
a bewildered little angel coming for the first time upon the lower
worlds, Peggy, fidgeting with her long white gloves and clutching
at her train, Peggy, her pretty head crowned by an intricate marvel
of the hairdresser’s art, her cheeks artificially flushed, her pale eyes
wide and her little mouth standing open in the probability that a
fit of hysterics may be coming on, Peggy, terribly conscious of
the faces about her, fluttering on the verge of the hard' years that
were to follow. Then she is standing before the minister, the cas-
sock and great white sleeves and little black book, standing at the
right hand of her hero lover, with his stern, proud face, his buff
and blue and glitter of gold. At Arnold’s left side, by the shortened
leg of Saratoga, a soldier stands to support him. There are a few
sobs of feminine emotion overflowing, an undercurrent to the
smooth music of the service. The General’s Calvinist forefathers,
no doubt, shudder in their graves, as he takes the ring and places
it on Peggy’s finger, holding it there, his little recitation sounding
very deep and loud in the hush around them:

“With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and
with all my worldly goods I thee endow: In the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

“Good Lord!” Elizabeth Tilghman exclaimed to Mrs. Major
Edward Burd, Peggy’s sister, “what will this world come to? who
could have ever Imagined that you would turn Preacher, and that

2l6

BENEDICT ARNOLD

Matrimony should be the Text. Perhaps you think that I don’t
remember the Quakes tremblings and a thousand other Quirks
that you had on a certain occasion. If your feelings were affected,
you are a monstrous Hypocrite and have a great sin to answer for
in frightening poor Peggy and myself into a solemn Oath, never

to change our State, which Oath, Madam P most religiously

kept, till she was Burgoyned— which, report says, was on Thurs-
day last. Will you my dear give my best love to Mrs. A. Tell her
that I wish her every happiness that this world is capable of afford-
ing, and that she may long live the delight and comfort of her
adoring General — there’s a flourish for you.”

From an elderly, eccentric Scot and sea fighter, Captain John
McPherson, the General had purchased a sedately proportioned
country mansion, Mount Pleasant, standing high above the Schuyl-
kill valley. It was a splendid marriage gift to the little bride, and
if its value was greatly lessened by mortgages, Peggy was still inno-
cent of business matters.

General Lee had been a center of interest in town at the time
of the wedding, trying to laugh away the attacks on his military
character. Young Benedict, Richard and Henry were loose in the
metropolis, rivaling their father’s boyish wildness. Robert Morris
won an apologetic parent’s thanks for helping Ben out of a scrape.
Philadelphia, the General decided, was a “bad school,” and put the
two eldest under the tutelage of a Maryland clergyman.

“If they have contracted any bad habits,” he assured this rever-
end gentleman, “they are not of long standing, & I make no doubt
under your care they will soon forget them.

“I wish their education to be useful rather than learned. Life
is too short & uncertain to throw away in speculations upon sub-
jects that perhaps only one man in ten thousand has a genius to
make a figure in.”

With the departure of the two boys, the family life enjoyed a
brief tranquillity. The adventurer, however, was restless and sour,
gouty, deprived of the use of either leg, Silas Deane informed a

ARNOLD WEARS HIS LAURELS 217

friend, in constant suffering and yet most deeply pained by the
wound in his character. One may picture the little group at dinner,
Major Franks, mildly pompous, the handsome, headstrong boy,
Clarkson, Hannah, primly watchful over seven year old Henry,
Punch, the General’s negro man, standing solemnly behind him,
and the General, tucking the lace ruffles into his sleeves and smiling
across the table to Peggy before he carves the turkey.

It was the particular duty of Franks to act as escort and guard
of honor for Mrs. Arnold. He came to be known among the inti-
mates of the family as “the nurse.” Only the most pleasant and
innocuous subjects could be discussed in her hearing, for in her
occasional fits of hysteria, “paroxysms of physical indisposition
attended by nervous debility,” as Franks diagnosed them, her tongue
played wildly with any subject whatever, and they were fearful
of the consequences of any slight shock. But for her, withal, the
days passed happily enough, in splendid displays at headquarters
or Mount Pleasant, prattling with Franks in the carriage as she
rode out to call upon her friends or to enjoy the little thrills of
shopping in the city. In August, a letter from an old acquaintance
came to her through the lines.

“It would make me very happy to be useful to you here,” wrote
Major John Andre. “You know the Meschianza made me a com-
plete milliner. Should you not have received supplies for your
fullest equipment from that department, I shall be glad to enter
into the whole detail of cap-wire, needles, gauze, etc., and, to the
best of my abilities, render you in these trifles services from which
I hope you would infer a zeal to be further employed.”

There was more behind this courtesy than the words acknowl-
edged. In the spring Sir Henry Clinton, commanding at New
York, had received, through trusted channels, veiled proposals of
a change of allegiance from Gustavus, an officer of high rank in
the rebel armies. Valuable information which Gustavus offered in
proof of his rank and intentions was found to be correct. Sir Henry
turned the negotiations over to his friend and Adjutant-General,

2l8

BENEDICT ARNOLD

Major Andre. There were reasons for believing that the mysterious
correspondent was the late disgruntled Governor of Philadelphia.
And Major Andre, feeling his way, replying to Gustavus under
the name of John Anderson, had approached the guileless Peggy in
hope of a more definite clew.

And the truth of the matter was that the adventurer, with Phila-
delphia’s trade opportunities destroyed, with the plan for a settle-
ment in the north interrupted and hindered by the charges and
publications of the Executive Council, with vindictive smears upon
the honor he had so gallantly defended in the field, with all the
unscrupulous impatience of a proud man who has a standard of
pretentious living to maintain, of a proud warrior who feels the
pinch of want, with his love of a daring gamble for high stakes,
with the conviction, entertained by many who watched the course
of events at the capital, that the republican government was sagging
to its fall, with these considerations, the truth of the matter was that
Benedict Arnold, like a wise mariner, had dropped an anchor to
windward.

CHAPTER XI

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE
I. The Warrior-Merchant Turns Actor.

“Delay is worse than death,” the fire-eater wrote to Washington
on the fifth of May with his customary emphasis, “and when it is
considered that the President and Council have had three months
to produce the evidence, I cannot suppose the ordering of a court-
martial to determine the matter immediately is the least precipi-
tating it. I entreat that the court may be ordered to sit as soon as
possible.” The date for the court’s convention, May first, had been
postponed a month at Reed’s request. Reed had complained that
his evidence was still incomplete, which was certainly its chief
fault, and added the threat of Pennsylvania’s sensitive regard for
her wagons. Arnold, with tempered execrations against his enemies,
replied that the time was being used to prejudice the public against
him. Every delay, he argued, held him back from rejoining the
army, “which I wish to do as soon as my wounds will permit.”

Washington, while he acceded to the demands of the Council
as far as tact demanded, was sympathetic with the attitude of his
stormy protege. And although it was a member of the Commander-
in-chief’s staff who had discovered the trade agreement between
Franks and Arnold, and the fact of the fire-eater’s diversion into
commerce was as well known in the army as elsewhere, the army
was, on the whole, in sympathy with the accused fighter. There
existed a certain mutual distrust between military and civil authori-
ties. Congress had offended too often with delay, mismanagement
and a refusal to recognize honor and the ethics of the profession
of arms to be respected. As for Pennsylvania, General Lee summed

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up a common opinion of her government in his reference to “the
President of this abominable State and a Banditti of ignorant,
obsequious, mercenary Clowns, his Satellites.” Solid General Knox
wrote contemptuously of “some highly colored charges,” and
doubted if one could be proven. Reed had made every effort to
avoid appearing before the public as the accusing party, but his
distinctions were too fine for the popular estimate to grasp.

In the f amil y, life went on as smoothly as ever, with but one
other discomforting element, the fact that it was running increas-
ingly into debt. The General’s accounts, sums which he might
d efini tely feel the nation owed him, were still unsettled, although,
greatly to their chagrin, the Council had been unable to find in
them any evidence of fraud. With the court-martial further de-
layed by the return of its judges to the field, there was only the
renowned siege of Fort Wilson, in the autumn, to relieve the tedium
of waiting.

The trouble originated from the fact that food was scarce and
expensive, that Robert Morris and others were known to have full
warehouses and to be selling at a profit. The trouble was, in short,
a mob demonstration against these in particular and all suspected
Tories in general. On October fourth the mob determined to burn
the house of James Wilson, a lawyer who had made himself ob-
noxious by pleading the cause of a citizen accused of treason.
Wilson’s friends gathered in arms to defend the house, closed the
shutters, barricaded the doors and waited. Among them were men
of known patriotism. The mob closed in around Fort Wilson,
shouting, hooting, firing, surging up to the doors. The air was full
of smoke and stones and loud, coarse voices. Unable to carry the
defenses at the first assault, some were shouting to break open
the warehouses and distribute the food. General Arnold, who, be-
ing no longer in command of the city, was under no obligation to
risk his life in the matter, rode through the seething borders of
the mob, calling on the people to disperse. Some men began to
stone him, but fled before the threat of his pistols. There was a

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 221

clatter of hoofs on the cobbles and before it ran the cry “The
horse! The horse!” as the First City Troop, with sabers menacingly
a-glitter overhead, rode down upon them and ended the day. No,
Neddy Burd informed the up-country relatives, it was not true that
General Arnold had been at Wilson’s house or that he was now
in jail for treason.

General Arnold subsided again from the spotlight until, on
the nineteenth of December, 1779, at Morristown in New Jersey
the curtain was raised on the long delayed court-martial. President
of the twelve judges, sat Major-General Robert Howe of North
Carolina. Assisting him, there were Brigadier-General Knox, with
an opinion already favorable to Arnold, Brigadier-General Max-
well, whose estimate of the fire-eater had always been a rather low
one, one other brigadier and eight colonels. The chief actor ap-
peared in all his splendid panoply. Short and ferocious, the fighting
general stood forth before them in the buff and blue of a glorious
and extremely handsome uniform, on his shoulders the epaulettes,
and on the sword of Saratoga, the sword knots that Washington
had given him. In the lines of the stern, dark face and in the clear
light eyes were pride and that aggressive consciousness of upright
intentions, and in his walk, a limp that had its dignity. Here was
the general who had written classic pages in the military history
of his race, marching through deserted wilds, holding superior
forces within his lines of siege, raising a fleet and an army and
hurling them against desperate odds, the general who had fallen
on the breastwork of the enemy in the front of the charge, in that
last wild hour of victory over Burgoyne. He appeared without
counsel trusting in his name to plead for him.

“Mr. President and Gentlemen of this honorable court:

“I appear before you to answer charges brought before me by
the late Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania. It is disagreeable to be accused; but when an accusa-
tion is made, I feel it a great source of consolation, to have an
opportunity of being tried by gentlemen whose delicate and refined

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sensations of honour will lead them to entertain similar sentiments
concer ning those who accuse unjustly, and those who are justly
accused. In the former case, your feelings revolt against the conduct
of the prosecutors; in the latter, against those who are deserved
objects of a prosecution. Whether those feelings will be directed
against me, or against those, whose charges have brought me before
you, will be known by your just and impartial determination of
this cause.

“When the present war against Great Britain commenced, I
was in easy circumstances, and enjoyed a fair prospect of improv-
ing them. I was happy in domestic connections, and blessed with
a rising family, who claimed my care and attention. The liberties
of my country were in danger. The voice of my country called upon
all of her faithful sons to join in her defense. With cheerfulness I
obeyed the call. I sacrificed domestic ease and happiness to the
service of my country, and in her service I have sacrificed a great
part of a handsome fortune. I was one of the first that have appeared
in the field, and from that time to the present hour, have not aban-
doned her service.” He lifts his eyes from the paper, no doubt,
gazing before him in an impressive pause.

“When one is charged with practices which his soul abhors,
and which conscious innocence tells him he has never committed,
an honest indignation will draw from him expressions in his own
favour, which, on other occasions, might be ascribed to an osten-
tatious turn of mind. The part which I have acted in the American
cause has been acknowledged by our friends, and by our enemies,
to have been far from an indifferent one. My time, my fortune,
and my person have been devoted to my country, in this war; and
if the sentiments of those who are supreme in the United States,
in civil and military affairs, are allowed to have any weight, my
time, my fortune, and my person have not been devoted in vain.
You will indulge me, gentlemen, while I lay before you some
honorable testimonials, which Congress, and the Commander-in-
chief of the armies of the United States, have been pleased to give

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 223

of my conduct. The place where I now stand justifies me in pro-
ducing them.”

He read the grateful and congratulatory resolutions of Con-
gress, and the letters in which Washington had praised and thanked
him. It was boastful, but he might have added more. Then, with a
brief allusion to the long and cruel delays, he turned to the charges
and contemptuously reviewed them.

Of the matter of the Charming Nancy, he disposed with an
ironical suggestion that Washington was not ignorant of the busi-
ness. “I think it peculiarly unfortunate that the armies of the
United States have a gentleman at their head who knows so little
about his own honour, or regards it so little, as to lay the President
and Council of Pennsylvania under the necessity of stepping forth
in its defense. Perhaps it may be of use to hint,

'Non tali auxilio eget, nec dejensoribus istis! ”

Washington, the court was assured, “will not prostitute his power
by exerting it upon a trifling occasion; far less will he pervert it
when no occasion is given at all.”

Of the insinuations which the Council derived from the closing
of the stores, he disposed briefly. “On the honour of a gentleman
and a soldier, I declare to Gentlemen and Soldiers, it is false.” For
the complaints of the militia he could show scant respect. For
his use of the wagons, he could only plead again that he was saving
valuable property from the enemy, and point to the insufficiency of
evidence behind the inference of the Council. He had a con-
temptuous allusion to the charge of Tory sympathies. “It is enough
for me, Mr. President, to contend with men in the field.” And
having, through it all, established himself as a miracle of unwaver-
ing patriotism, the dark little adventurer turned to the destruction
of his enemy. He made use of the rumors that Reed had thought
of changing his allegiance in the gloomy days of ’seventy-six.

“Conscious of my own innocence, and the unworthy methods

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BENEDICT ARNOLD

taken to injure me, I can with boldness say to my persecutors in
general, and to the chief of them in particular, that in the hour of
danger, when the affairs of America wore a gloomy aspect, when
our illustrious general was retreating through New Jersey with a
handful of men, I did not propose to my associates basely to quit
the general, and sacrifice the cause of my country to my personal
safety, by going over to the enemy, and making my peace.”

Apologizing briefly for the form of his defense, he concluded
with the last appeal to the camaraderie of arms. “I have looked
forward with pleasing anxiety to the present day, when, by the
judgment of my fellow soldiers I shall, (I doubt not) stand
honorably acquitted of all the charges brought against me, and
again share with them the glory and danger of this just war.”

It was brilliant strategy and brilliant acting. Only one thing
stood in the way of complete exoneration, and that was the over-
shadowing power of Pennsylvania. After balancing the evidence
with this fact, the court announced its verdict, on the twenty-second
of January: On the first charge, the pass to the Nancy was declared
illegal. Of the second and third, General Arnold was fully acquitted.
On the last, the use of the wagons, his conduct was judged im-
prudent and improper, but free of all intentional wrong. The
sentence was a reprimand by the Commander-in-chief.

Arnold was in a black rage. Reprimanded? “For what?” He
fumed. “Not for doing wrong, but because I might have done
wrong; or, rather, because there was a possibility that evil might
have followed the good I did.” He sent copies of the proceedings
of the court to the governors and legislatures of the thirteen states,
that the nation might see that virtual acquittal lay behind the
disgrace of reprimand. He did not intend his change of allegiance
to seem a flight from justice. He even begged Deane, leaving the
country under a cloud, to publish the trial in France. The verdict,
moreover, brought an inevitable reaction of popular feeling in favor
of Arnold, and even the Executive Council, with its finger ever
on the public pulse, felt concerned. “We do not think it proper to

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 225

affect ignorance of what is the subject of public conversation,” they
began, humbly petitioning Congress “to dispense with that part of
the sentence which imposes a public censure, and may most aifect
the feelings of a brave and gallant officer.” But the plea came too
late, and Congress confirmed the sentence. The reprimand was
delicately, sympathetically molded to the proud temper of the
fighting general.

“Our profession is the chastest of all; even the shadow of a
fault tarnishes the lustre of our finest achievements. The least
inadvertance may rob us of the public favor, so hard to be ac-
quired. I reprimand you for having forgotten that in proportion
as you have rendered yourself formidable to our enemies, you should
have been guarded and temperate in your deportment towards your
fellow-citizens. Exhibit anew those noble qualities which have
placed you on the list of our most valued commanders. I will
myself furnish you, as far as it may be in my power, with oppor-
tunities for regaining the esteem of your country.”

But delicacy and sympathy could not balance the stain of dis-
honor or the urge to revenge. From the petty quibbling of his
judges, from the restraints and nuisances of debt, the proud warrior
yearned for higher peaks of greatness. He was an actor now, somber
and eloquent, his true self alone among enemies with a dream
of power.

II. Mr. Moore and Company Engages in Business.

For those who are moved by adventurous romance, there has
always been a fascination in Arnold’s career, of bold and reasoned
aspirations, of climaxes, vividly and narrowly decided, of destiny,
painting a splendid, prismatic design. It is a career with the struc-
ture of a moral melodrama, and highly moral melodramas have
been written of it, and, caught in its glamor, heightened its colorful
scenes even to absurdity. It is this period that has had the deepest
fascination, this period of fierce uncertainty and lurking danger.

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BENEDICT ARNOLD

leading into the mazes of intrigue, with the mystery of this sensi-
tive, courageous soldier, in whom treason and honor were now so
strangely blended. Some solved the problem by deciding that the
man was a coward from the first, excited to valor by drunkenness.
Others, scorning to recognize that one who was not of noblest
qualities could have fought so bravely in Freedom’s cause, preferred
to believe that the hounding of his enemies, the persuasions of a
Tory wife and her friends, had wrought a terrible change. The
generation which followed him, with its clear conceptions of con-
science and religion, thought most often of a hero, caught in the
current subtle passions, a brooding ominous figure, whose months
of indecision seemed like a choosing between Heaven and Hell,
and brought to their minds the molten brilliance of perdition
seething beneath him, the eyes of their inveterate God, peering into
his soul, and the voices that may have asked him, “Where are you
going, proud warrior?”

Actually, there was only one question to be answered in these
months from the spring of 1779 to the spring of 1780, and that was
a thoroughly practical one: “Where lie the greatest advantages?”
There were obvious features of temperament which influenced his
decision. There were mortification and the hot, vindictive anger,
goaded by the agonies of illness and the shortened leg. His rise to
fame had been hindered and opposed throughout, he had already
endured the ignominy of a traitor. There was ambition, that vivid
imagination, hopeful, impulsive, which drove him swiftly toward
his desires and made them seem certainties, that optimism which
led him so readily into speculation. There was the insatiable desire
to rise. The necessity for action was a part of his being. If checked
at one point, he expanded at another. His energy became only more
violent under restraint. He had already endured suffering, anxiety,
dishonor, with unflinching devotion; these he could bear without
thought of disloyalty until practical advantage appeared upon the
other side. And for practical consideration there were two aspects
to his problem, the reasons for abandoning the wavering rebel cause,

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 227

and the reasons for entering the stable, well-rewarded service of
the King.

The American arms in 1780, were suffering from conditions
which, as Charles Lee observed of another matter, were enough
to make Job swear like a Virginia colonel. At the bottom of the
trouble were the lack of credit and the incompetence of Congress
to meet the difficulties. Washington and Reed bemoaned and ex-
horted, patriots everywhere strove and sacrificed in vain, merchants
agreed to take the paper at its face value, the Daughters of Liberty
begged and worked, but all with surprisingly small results. People
were losing interest and respect. In Philadelphia a dog was tarred
and feathered with the worthless paper money. The Commander-
in-chief had small cooperation from his government. “I am very
confident there is a party business going on again,” he wrote, “and
as Mifflin is connected with it, doubt nothing of its being a renewal
of the old scheme.”

For the army, the winter of 1779 and 1780 had been one of
greatest severity. The soldiers were miserably clad, were grumbling,
by force of habit, for their arrears, and had eaten, as their com-
mander confessed, “every kind of horse food but hay.” Hunger
was leading them out at night to pillage the farms. Arnold was
not the only officer in touch with the enemy. Steuben foresaw the
whole army melting away unless specie could be obtained. Only
a few officers measured correctly the faith and endurance of the
core of the little army. “I would cherish,” wrote the young and
chivalric Colonel John Laurens, who was to die among them,
“those dear, ragged Continentals, whose patience will be the admira-
tion of future ages, and glory in bleeding with them.”

In the British service, on the other hand, a convert of high rank
might expect to be welcomed with acclaim, and Arnold more than
any other, for there was more respect for his prowess among the
English than he had found in his countrymen. He was popular,
too, with the rebel soldiery, and could hope if his stroke was suc-
cessful, that many of them would follow his example. Once he

228

BENEDICT ARNOLD

had turned to the serious consideration of a change of allegiance,
the whole fate of the war seemed to lie in his hands. He became the
figure of supreme importance on the continent. Successful, England
would hail him the savior of the empire, and America as the re-
storer of peace and security. Success would remove the taint of
treason, as it had done for Albemarle and for other soldiers of
fortune.

As for Peggy, she was a woman, ignorant of the issues and in-
capable of rational decision. She was indulged only in small things,
as one may infer from the plan for a manor in the wilderness,
hardly suited to her city-bred temperament. She could not have
endured the terrible perils of the treason. On the nineteenth of
March, 1780, she became the mother of a son, Edward Shippen
Arnold. Yet Margaret, for all her frailties, was not without use-
fulness. The adventurer had always had difficulty in trusting his
subordinates and rarely inspired faithful service. The former Mrs.
Arnold had managed many of his minor business concerns, the
second could do as much, and Peggy, no doubt somewhat painfully
at first, began to assume the character of a business woman.

Not only the Americans were tiring of the conflict. The ringing
toasts of the English mess rooms, “A glorious war and a long one!”
had given place to the sober hope, “A speedy accommodation of
our present unnatural disputes.” Proclamations, in which head-
quarters had still a strange faith, had proved ineffectual in winning
back the allegiance of the errant subjects, and more subtle per-
suasion was under serious consideration. Estimates of the prices
of rebel leaders were being discussed. The government had prom-
ised to make good any offers of money and rank. General Putnam,
it was declared with assurance, might be had for a dollar a day.
Elias Boudinot was offered ten thousand guineas or a dukedom.
But here, in the spring of 1779, had come, unsolicited, the greatest
opportunity of all. Clinton and Andre cultivated it with care.

The mysterious Gustavus had declared his dissatisfaction with
the French alliance. He was out of sympathy with the Declaration

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 229

of Independence, as long as redress of grievances was assured. He
was desirous of changing his allegiance and was willing to do so
in a manner advantageous to the crown, could he be certain of
personal security and indemnity for the losses which his act would
cause him. Gustavus was answered with encouragement for his
political feelings and assurances of greatness. The polite and chival-
rous Andre, dazzled by the possibilities, worked with delicacy and
enthusiasm.

The letters crept back and forth, carried by spies and Tory en-
thusiasts, sometimes enclosed in others, erroneously dated or in
cipher. Gustavus, it seemed, worked in conjunction with Mr. Moore.
Through long, close-written, tedious letters he talked in veiled
language of speculations, partners, losses, gains and ready money.
It was dangerous business, and the adventurer meant to strike a
good bargain. He knew how necessary wealth might be to him in
the British service. Twenty thousand pounds was the compensation
Mr. Moore demanded. Mr. Anderson felt that he could talk busi-
ness on a basis of half the sum.

In the meantime, at Philadelphia, General Arnold was looking
about for a position from which he might make a definite offer
of a coup d'etat. In March there was under confidential discussion
in the rebel congress and headquarters, a plan suggested by General
Arnold for an attack on the enemy by sea. Washington was not
unfavorable to the scheme but felt unable to spare the troops re-
quired. He expressed a preference that General Arnold should be
with him in the field, but offered him leave of absence from the
army should he desire, as he had suggested a voyage for his health,
and extended his compliments to Mrs. Arnold “on the late happy
event.”

“If the men can be spared,” Arnold assured Deane, an exile in
France, “and the plan takes place you will hear from me soon.”
Otherwise he intended going to Boston to take command of a
private ship. The men, however, could not be spared, and Arnold
remained at Philadelphia. His debts were increasing. Punch, his

BENEDICT ARNOLD

230

negro servant ran away. Hoping for a loan, he approached the
French Minister, Luzerne, who was keeping the impoverished
General Sullivan faithful by a pension, but it was gracefully denied
him. He was borrowing money from scattered sources with the
comforting prospect of being soon in a position where he would
be able to pay but under no legal obligation to do so.

Unable to secure the independent command of an army, the
adventurer’s next move was toward some important fortification,
and his choice fell upon the works in the Hudson River highlands,
erected in the preceding year to stand against a northward thrust
from New York or a new invasion from Canada. He begged his
friends, General Schuyler and Robert R. Livingston, to bring the
matter to the attention of the Commander-in-chief. He was eager
to be in harness again, he assured them, but his wounds still made
active service impossible. The two friends warmly urged his
appointment.

Washington, Schuyler replied to Arnold on the second of June,
“expressed a desire to do whatever was agreeable to you, dwelt on
your abilities, your merits, your sufferings, and the well earned
claims you have on your country, and intimated that as soon as
his arrangements for the campaign take place, that he would
properly consider you. I believe you will have an alternative pro-
posed, either to take charge of an important post, with an honorable
command, or your station in the field. Your reputation, my dear
sir, so established, your honorable scars, put it decidedly in your
power to take either.”

At the same time, Arnold was given a part in the arrangements
for the campaign. Washington had written with an encouraging
assurance that there might yet be a new invasion of Canada and
gave to Arnold the secret work of printing a proclamation to the
Canadians which he and Lafayette had concocted. The proclama-
tion was to be, however, merely a ruse of deceiving Sir Henry
Clinton into the belief that the American objective was Canada
and not New York. Arnold undertook the business promptly and

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 231

respectfully, Peggy attending to the final details after his departure
for a brief visit to New Haven. And Sir Henry, through his pri-
vate intelligence, was convinced that the objective was New York
with such thoroughness that, at a later date, he had lost an army
before he realized the possibility of a change. “The moonshine gen-
eral,” the rebels styled this painstaking officer.

On his return from Connecticut, Arnold came upon the main
army as it was crossing the Hudson. Washington and the friend
who was betraying him met on horseback on the heights above,
and watched the last division ferried over. The adventurer asked
if a place had been assigned to him.

“Yes,” the Commander-in-chief replied, “you are to command
the left wing, the post of honor.” An aide was surprised to see a
sudden change in the dark face. Arnold was not pleased.

Washington was eager to have him in the field, and there was
but one alternative. He must plead wounds and general debility.
He knew that he had suffered much and his wish would not be
denied him. On the third of August, Washington wrote his instruc-
tions as Commandant of West Point. He proceeded at once to the
post and established his headquarters at the rambling frame farm-
house, the country seat of Colonel Beverly Robinson, then at New
York, one of Clinton’s few confidants in the negotiations with
Gustavus.

He invited Richard Varick to come as his secretary and promised
that the duties would be light. “As this has the appearance of a
quiet post,” he added, “I shall expect Mrs. Arnold will soon be with
me.” Varick was grateful. “The presence of Mrs. Arnold,” he re-
plied, with true eighteenth-century distaste for scenic beauties,
“will make our situation in the Barren Highlands vastly more agree-
able and I am persuaded will more than compensate for any
deficiency in nature.” The General’s friend, Colonel John Lamb,
was at the post, and his old enemy, Colonel Hazen. General Wayne,
who liked him none too well, commanded an important division
of the defenses.

232

BENEDICT ARNOLD

The garrison was taking things easily. “We make ourselves very
Merry at this place/’ Lieutenant Enos Reeves confessed to his
diar y, “and as there is but few of the inhabitants worthy of our
notice, we enjoy ourselves without them.

“The evening of the 29 ultimo several of us dressed in women’s
clothes and had a genteel Country Dance— spent the evening in
great glee.”

The famous Arnold became a familiar figure, limping about
the headquarters with the help of his cane, or riding over the hills
to inspect the works. An officer asked whether the enemy should
be met at the works or attacked in the defiles. Arnold replied that
he would strike them in the defiles. He was forming his plans,
distributing his garrison so that it could be captured in detail. The
work was carried on in the form of an elaborate preparation for
attack. Signals were arranged, by which the scattered divisions were
to cooperate. Washington, he announced, apprehends an intended
assault. He ordered that Verplanck’s and Stony Points be aban-
doned at the approach of the enemy, and their garrisons fall back
to other defenses. He was worried by the knowledge that a re-
sistance at these places might block the whole enterprise. He
ordered that the great chain, placed across the river to prevent ships
from passing, be repaired. A link was removed, and the ends so
bound together that a vessel could easily break through. He was
full of complaints. He besought Timothy Pickering, Quartermaster-
General, for powder, ammunition and supplies, and, when this well
was dry, turned querulously to Governor George Clinton, of New
York, in the same laudable anxiety that Sir Henry should have the
best possible bargain. Simultaneously, he continued to feather his
own nest by exchanging his paper for specie.

Needless to say, the news of all these doings on the part of Mr.
Moore was unraveled with infinite satisfaction at New York by
Mr. James Osborn, otherwise His Majesty’s Commander-in-chief,
and Mr. John Anderson, in public life the Adjutant-General.

Definite suggestions were in order.

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 233

“A variety of circumstances,” Mr. Anderson was informed on the thirtieth
of August, “have prevented my writing you before. I expect to do it very fully

in a few days, and to procure you an interview with Mr. M e, when you

will be able to settle your commercial plan, I hope, agreeable to all parties. Mr.

M e assures me that he is still of opinion that his first proposal is by no

means unreasonable, and makes no doubt, when he has had a conference with
you, that you will close with it. He expects, when you meet, that you will be
fully authorized from your House; that the risks and profits of the co-partner-
ship may be fully and clearly understood.

“A speculation at this time might be easily made to advantage with ready
money; but there is not the quantity of goods at mar\et which your partner
seems to suppose, and the number of speculators below, I think, will be against
your making an immediate purchase. I apprehend the goods will be in greater
plenty, and much cheaper, in the course of the season; both dry and wet are
much wanted and in demand at this juncture; some quantities are expected

in this part of the country soon. Mr. M e flatters himself, that in the course

of ten days he will have the pleasure of seeing you; he requests me to advise

you, that he has ordered a draft on you in favour of our mutual friend S y

for ^300, which you will charge on account of the tobacco . I am, in behalf of
Mr. M e and Co., Sir, your obedient humble servant,

“Gustavus.”

Both sides were eager for an “immediate purchase.” The num-
ber of speculators below, which disturbed Gustavus, were the posts
at Stony and Verplanck’s Points. The details of the transaction
could not be arranged in such veiled correspondence. An interview
was necessary, in which Arnold could show his colors and decide
his plans. The situation offered an opportunity for a counterplot
and a disastrous surprise of the advancing “purchasers,” The
English, if a personal meeting were effected, could be finally sure
of the identity of their secret ally, could bring to a head the wrangle
over indemnification and form a definite program for action. The
smashing defeat of Gates, “that hero,” as Arnold mockingly called
him in commenting on the event, had won the South for England.
One French fleet was blockaded at Newport, another across the
sea at Brest. The time had come for a conquering stroke in the
North. General Knyphausen of the mercenaries and Admiral

BENEDICT ARNOLD

234

Rodney were consulted. Off the city, a fleet of transports and ships
of war of the proper draught, ostensibly bound on an expedition
to the Chesapeake, moved with the gentle swell and moodily tugged
at their anchor ropes.

111. Enter Melpomene.

An Englishman who had long trodden the dark mazes of athe-
istical thought, according to an anecdote popular in America’s age
of simple faith, was converted to Christianity by reading a history
of the American Revolution, wherein he found irrefutable evidence
of the hand of God working in the affairs of man. And the adven-
ture which came to its climax at West Point is vivid with a sequence
of strange accidents which might force a belief in a higher author-
ship. The dramatic narrowness with which the great plot failed,
carried safely through myriad perils until the last possible moment,
until it was wrecked by the last precaution against miscarriage, the
tragic mischances by which the traitor escaped and a gallant young
soldier was made to die the traitor’s death, the utter failure of the
long structure of intrigue giving new strength and encouragement
to the cause whose ruin it had been designed to complete, all add
brilliant color to the tragedy.

Early in September, a new player entered, to increase the con-
trasts of the scene. Mrs. Arnold, with the baby, a nurse, and Major
Franks for escort, arrived at headquarters. The General had wished
her to be spared the bustle of camp life during the summer, but
winter quarters were being prepared and a quiet season was in
order. Every day, however, there was lively company at dinner,
her General, and Franks, and Varick, and Dr. Eustis, and gruff
old Colonel Lamb, and others, among them a colorless gentleman
of the neighborhood, Mr. Joshua Hett Smith, who seemed to have
the General’s confidence but was disliked by the staff because of
his reputed Toryism and his impudent, self-confident airs.

From her sickbed at Philadelphia where she had been left with

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 235

her one remaining nephew, Hannah wrote to Peggy “a splenatic
scrawl,” as she called it. “Harry,” she wrote, “was inconsolable the
whole day you left us, and had, I believe, not less than twenty
violent bursts of grief; his little brother Edward seems to be the
principal theme of his mournful song. . . . He says he wishes
mamm a would please to kiss Edward one hundred times for him,
and when her hand is in, she may, if she pleases, give him fifty for
his aunt.”

Peggy’s social pleasures as hostess of the post were varied by a
correspondence with Major Andre and other officers of her ac-
quaintance at New York. Andre found himself primly rebuked for
seeking to monopolize her interest. The passage of these little gal-
lantries, as well as of the General’s concerns, was rendered more
easy by the fact that Arnold was now able to maintain legitimate
lines of communication with the enemy.

Arrangements for the plot’s concluding interview were taking
form. Arnold, considerate of personal dignity, at first demanded
an envoy of equal rank. Clinton might have sent the veteran,
Major-General James Robertson, who had handled some such
matters, but Andre was the logical and a more competent man,
and himself asked for the dangerous mission. Arnold, too, had at
last suggested Andr<£ as a fitting person. Clinton at first refused, for
he loved the young man, and saw how closely the dangers balanced
the advantages of the project. But the Commandant of the threat-
ened fortress was insistent on an interview, and he at last consented,
urging every precaution.

Arnold, anxiously waiting, was uncertain how to expect the
emissary. He had suggested that the envoy enter the lines at a
certain outpost, and had sent word there that Mr. John Anderson
might arrive and was to be conducted immediately to him. On the
tenth, he had been rowed down the river in his barge, passed the
night at Joshua Smith’s house, south of Stony Point, and then on
toward a rendezvous where Andre and Colonel Robinson were
waiting. But some British gunboats, without orders in the matter,

2 3 S BENEDICT ARNOLD

opened fire and drove him back, and both parties had returned to
their headquarters.

On the sixteenth, the conspirators’ ship, an old third-rater
sloop-of-war, the Vulture, which had been on secret business of the
kind before in her time, again crept up the river into the shadow
of the mountains, and Robinson, in a dextrously worded note,
announced his presence to the Commandant by requesting an inter-
view. Arnold was at dinner when the letter arrived. He broke the
seal, glanced over the contents, and remarked casually to the com-
pany that the enemy was seeking an interview. Lamb, brows
lowered and lone eye sparkling, burst out with solid argument for
refusing all but the most necessary communication with the dirty
rascals. Arnold pocketed the letter and the subject was dropped
without further comment.

Then a disturbing possibility entered his plans. Washington
passed the post on his way to a conference with Rochambeau at
Hartford. In a few days he expected to return. Arnold was not
anxious for his presence at the time of the stroke, as he would
undoubtedly take command of the works at the first news of an
attack. The traitor met him at Ring’s Ferry, and the two crossed
together. This was on the eighteenth of September, toward evening.
Arnold drew the letter from his belt and asked his advice. He
replied in positive terms of the danger and indignity of meeting
an envoy of the enemy in person. He examined through a glass the
dark hull of the Vulture, anchored below them, and Arnold
seemed uneasy. Lafayette mentioned a casual matter.

“General Arnold,” he said, “since you have a correspondence
with the enemy, you must ascertain as soon as possible what has
become of Guichen.”

For a moment, the dark little man’s mouth drooped and his
light eyes stared in surprised confusion. His brows narrowed, and
he hotly demanded what the question meant. Then he recovered
himself and the barge slid on in silence. The farewells were spoken,
and Washington and his suite passed on their way. In that moment,

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 237

the iron courage of Arnold had wavered, a courage which, through
all the long ordeal had been well proven.

Andre returned to New York, still hopeful of high achievement.
A baronet’s crest and a brigadier’s epaulettes would be his. It was
known that Washington might be within range of the conquest.
On the night of the nineteenth, Clinton and his staff, in scarlet
brilliance, honored the occasion at dinner. Andre, when it came his
turn to sing, gave them the carefree chanson that Wolfe had sung
on the eve of his great victory at Quebec.

“Why, soldiers, why,

Should we be melancholy, boys,

Whose business ’tis to die?

For should next campaign

Send us to Him who made us, boys.

We’re free from pain.

But should we remain,

A bottle and kind landlady
Makes all well again.”

In the morning, the Vulture made sail and swung once more
into the North River, creeping up into the highlands under a cloudy
sky, her deck wet by passing rainstorms rolling over the moun-
tains. They anchored in Haverstraw Bay, four miles south of
Stony Point, and waited. But the night passed without signal or
messenger.

Thursday, the twenty-first, passed uneventfully on board the
Vulture. But Arnold was at Joshua Smith’s house, preparing for an
eventful night. Smith, who was probably left to conjecture just
what it was all about, and in such case probably conjectured wrong,
had some days earlier taken his family to visit friends at Fishkill,
that the house might be free for General Arnold’s important
business.

Near midnight Smith left the shore in a heavy skiff, rowed by
two of his tenants, whose unwillingness money and threats had
narrowly overcome. He had passes from Arnold, and the watch-

BENEDICT ARNOLD

238

word, “Congress,” by which to pass the American guard boats. It
was a clear night. The oars were muffled with sheepskins. The men
tugged laboriously, but the ebb was carrying them forward, within
sight, at last, of the black body and spars of the Vulture, her lan-
terns star ing wanly across the still, misty water. The sloop’s hail
was answered, and the skiff slid into the shadow of her side. Smith
was bluntly ordered on deck, and the ship’s boy showed him into
the cabin.

There he was received by Colonel Robinson, in his scarlet regi-
mentals, who apologized for the rough greeting he had received,
and introduced him to Lieutenant Sutherland, commander of the
Vulture, lying ill on his berth. Smith presented a letter from Arnold,
and Robinson retired to consult with Andre, who had been asleep.
They had expected Arnold himself to come to the ship. The letter
mentioned no emissary, but Andre was insistent on playing his
part. He soon appeared in the cabin, a long blue coat covering his
uniform to the boots. With Smith, he climbed down into the boat,
and they were rowed to the western shore, near by, under a moun-
tain called the Long Clove. The young officer was led into the deep
shadow of a grove of firs, and there exchanged a courteous greeting
with a thick, black-cloaked figure, Gustavus, the faint glow of a
dark lantern on the ground beside him. Arnold was impatient and
nervous. He bade Smith wait for them at the shore, and that gentle-
man retired to the boat, where his henchmen were already snoring,
and waited, trembling with ague, fear and disgruntled pride.

Time passed quickly in the grove of firs, mapping the details
by which the outposts were to be cut apart and taken and the main
garrison surrendered. As for the reward, ten thousand pounds and
a Major-General’s commission were the most that could be offered.
The darkness was waning through a heavy fog when Smith re-
turned and warned them of the time, but a hot sun was burning
the mist away when they were ready to go, and the boatmen,
grumbling and hungry, refused to make the trip by daylight.

Smith, his two men, and his negro servant who had ridden

LEAVING THE VULTURE

From an engraving, in the New York Public Library , of the
original drawing by Major Andre

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 239

down with the General, went north by water, the conspirators by
road on the horses. At Haverstraw they were challenged by a
sentry. Andre was within enemy lines but he could only smother
his annoyance, his life in the hands of the dark man riding at his
side. The morning sun was warm above them when they dis-
mounted at the square stone mansion of Joshua Hett Smith.

In the meantime, Colonel Livingston, at Verplanck’s Point, had
shared the annoyance of his garrison at the coming and going of
His Majesty’s sloop, the Vulture. He had applied to Arnold for two
heavy guns, confident that he could mount them on a hill and
sink her. Arnold had refused with evasive excuses. But Livingston
knew a good opportunity when he saw it, and dragged a four
pounder out to the promontory of Gallows Point. There he was
when the fog lifted, and his gun began to roar and the round shot
to splash closer and closer to the offending ship as his gunners
improved their aim. With Arnold and Andre watching from
another window, on the other side of the river, the Vulture raised
her anchor and glided out of range.

Smith came in, and breakfast was eaten, with casual conversa-
tion of military matters. The two conspirators retired to an upper
room, and there settled, in final form, the plan of attack. Andre
was given six papers, two of them in Arnold’s hand, describing the
force and disposition of the garrison. He might have noted their
substance in a less easily comprehensible form, but the traitor was
eager to prove his sincerity when sending them as they were, and
suggested he hide them in his stocking under the foot. Before the
clock had struck ten, Arnold had finished the business, given a
parting admonition to Smith, and had ridden away.

The day passed uneasily, Andre walking the floor, the hidden
papers an uncomfortable reminder of his perilous position at every
step. Smith tried in vain to borrow an American uniform from a
neighbor. He tried to worm some explanation of the secret con-
ference from the young officer, but only departure interested Andr£.
Smith’s men refused to make another voyage, and at last, late in

24 °

BENEDICT ARNOLD

the day, giving Andre a long coat with a cape, which buttoned
closely over his uniform, and a worn beaver hat, the two men,
with the negro servant following behind, rode out upon the high-
way to the south, with its ancient sign-post, “Dishe his de Roode
toe de Kshing’s Fairy.” They had passes from Arnold, but Andre
had found himself obliged to break Clinton’s most urgent cautions.
He had entered the enemy’s lines, he had accepted incriminating
papers and he was in disguise. They crossed at King’s Ferry, were
halted in the night by an American patrol, and slept at a farm
near by. In the morning, they rode on a few miles, and then Smith
turned back, leaving Andre with some thirty miles of neutral
ground between himself and his triumph.

On Saturday, the twenty-third, Smith was back at headquarters
in time for dinner. Besides the General and his lady, Colonel Lamb,
Major Franks, Colonel Varick and Dr. Eustis were among the
company. Varick had been vastly annoyed by Smith’s intimacy with
the Commandant, and by his self-confident forwardness, and sat
down with the fixed resolution to insult him at the first oppor-
tunity. There happened to be a scarcity of butter on the table, and
Peggy ordered more. The servant replied that it had all been used.

“Bless me,” said the General, affably, “I had forgotten the oil
I bought in Philadelphia. It will go very well with the salt fish.”
The oil was brought, and Arnold remarked that it had cost him
eighty dollars.

“Eighty pence,” said Smith. “A dollar is no more than a penny.”

This impudence was coldly denied by Varick in a manner
which, as Colonel Lamb noted with pleasure, carried an intentional
insult. Angry assertions and denials were slapped back and forth,
Franks joining the game. And then Peggy, seeing the face of her
husband hardening with rage, begged the gentlemen to drop the
subject as it gave her pain. Varick, in an after-dinner discussion,
assured Colonel Lamb that he intended to affront Smith at every
opportunity and drive him from the house if he could.

Sunday passed, swept by heavy storms of thunder and rain.

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 241

Washington was expected to return by the middle of the week. Only
the arrival of Andre at New York was needed to throw Clinton’s
waiting forces into West Point.

Monday morning found Margaret presiding primly at her break-
fast table. Word had come that General Washington, returning
earlier than expected, hoped to join them later at the meal. Across
from her, Arnold seemed moody and sullen. It was the day on
which he expected to be the guiding spirit in a scene of wild tur-
moil, a play of tragic defeat that was to be, in reality, his glorious
victory. A horseman was at the door. It might have been the first
news of attack. Lieutenant Allen entered with a dispatch from
Lieutenant-Colonel Jameson of the outpost at New Castle. Arnold
rose to his feet, his fingers swiftly ripping under the seal. The
letter briefly informed him that an officer of the enemy, calling
himself John Anderson, had been captured in disguise and was
being sent, under guard, to headquarters. Incriminating papers
found upon him had been forwarded to Washington. The General
excused himself. He walked to the door, limping quickly on his
cane, and ordered a horse, any horse. He then climbed the stair to
Mrs. Arnold’s room, and sent for her. His explanation was brief,
and as she paled, fainting in his arms, he laid her on the bed, near
which the child was sleeping.

Down to the water side where his six-oared barge lay moored,
the desperate adventurer rode at a gallop. He called hoarsely to
the bargemen as he climbed aboard, and the craft glided out to
midstream. He ordered them to row down the river and to waste
no time, as he must be back to meet General Washington. He was
priming his pistols. He remonstrated angrily when Larvey, the
coxswain, told him the men in their haste had 1 come armed with
only two swords. All the way, he was nervously cocking and half
cocking his pistols. He promised them two gallons of rum for
reward. The men wet their breathless lips, and the barge sped
through the water. Near King’s Ferry lay the Vulture, waiting still
for AndrA He tied a handkerchief to his cane, waved it, and ordered

BENEDICT ARNOLD

242

the crew to row for the ship. Bewildered, they watched him climb
over the vessel’s side. In a while he was back again, with a smile of
persuasion on his dark face.

“My lads, I have quitted the Rebel army, and joined the standard
of his Britannic Majesty. If you will join me, I will make sergeants
and corporals of you all, and for you, James, I will do something
more.”

“No, sir,” said James Larvey. “One coat is enough for me to
wear at a time.” Two men, already deserters from the crown, ac-
cepted the terms. The others were allowed to return after a brief
imprisonment.

Washington had been detained from Peggy’s breakfast table
on that morning, by a desire to inspect the lower fortifications on
the river. Lafayette had remonstrated that their hostess would be
waiting.

“Ah, Marquis,” the big soldier replied, “you young men are all
in love with Mrs. Arnold. Go and breakfast with her, and tell her
not to wait for me. I must ride down and examine the redoubts
on this side of the river.” Lafayette, however, remained, and it had
been an aide, Colonel Alexander Hamilton, who had brought the
message to headquarters, and watched, unsuspecting, the hurried
flight of the traitor.

He was glad that General Arnold knew of his coming, the Com-
mander remarked, later, for his salute would have a splendid echo
over the mountains. As they neared headquarters, Colonel Lamb
appeared, with the news that Arnold had left on sudden urgent
business across the river, promising to return immediately. At head-
quarters, Jameson’s messenger, with the incriminating papers, at
last overtook them. Hamilton read the tightly folded sheets, and
hurried to the General, spoke to him urgently in a low tone and
they entered the house together. In a few minutes, Hamilton was
galloping down along the river, in the hope of intercepting the
fugitive, and Washington was breaking the heartrending news in
confidence to Lafayette and Knox, with a pitiable, “Whom can we

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 243

trust now?” They turned at once to preparation for the defense
of the works.

In the little headquarters family, an air of mystery prevailed,
deepening with the continued absence of the Commandant. The
child’s nurse had found his mother unconscious on her bed, and
thus she had lain for more than an hour and, when she opened
her eyes, it was in wild hysteria. Her clothing in disarray, her hair
hanging about her shoulders and over her face, Franks and Varick
and the old woman tried vainly to quiet her. She cried that she
was alone, surrounded by murderers. They promised that General
Arnold would soon be with her.

“Oh, no, no, no,” she moaned, “he is gone, gone forever!” When
Varick tried to assure her he would soon return with Washington,
she cried, pointing to the ceiling, “General Arnold will never return.
He is gone, he is gone forever, there, there, there, the spirits have
carried him up there.”

This stirred a suspicion. Some one had seen the General’s barge
headed down the river. Dr. Eustis had been called, and had found
Peggy struggling in the arms of the two men at the head of the
stairs. “Colonel Varick,” she cried, “have you ordered my child to
be killed?” and fell at his knees, pleading for the baby’s life. They
laid her on the bed in convulsions. The doctor begged them for
God’s sake to find Arnold or the woman would die. They took
him aside and whispered their suspicion that Arnold had gone to
the enemy.

With Peggy crying that there was a hot iron on her head and
only General Washington could take it away, the tall Virginian,
anxiety deepening the lines of his handsome face, came to her bed-
side. They told her it was Washington, but she could see only a
big man come to murder her child, and they left her, screaming in
a frenzy of terror that Colonel Varick was killing the child. The
sad plight of Peggy, so affectionately nurtured and so cruelly
stricken by fate, made her an object of compassionate interest,
especially to the young Marquis. “As for myself,” he confessed to

BENEDICT ARNOLD

244

Luzerne, “you know that I have always been fond of her, and at
this moment she interests me intensely. We are certain that she
knew nothing of the plot.” She came to herself at last, awakening
from a stupor, and faced her situation, tearless and frightened, eager
to return to her father.

While Washington was restoring order at the post, he received
a c ommuni cation from its absent Commandant. The letter was in
a thoroughly characteristic style.

“On Board the Vulture, Sept 25th, 1780.

“Sir, —

“The heart which is conscious of its own rectitude, cannot attempt to pal-
liate a step which the world may censure as wrong; I have ever acted upon
the principle of love to my country, since the commencement of the present
unhappy contest between Great Britain and the Colonies. The same principle
of love to my country actuates my present conduct, however it may appear
inconsistent to the world, who very seldom judge right of a man's actions.

“I have no favor to ask for myself; I have too often experienced the ingrati-
tude of my country to attempt it; but from the known humanity of your
Excellency I am induced to ask your protection for Mrs. Arnold, from every
insult and injury that the mistaken vengeance of my country may expose her
to. It ought to fall only on me. She is as good and as innocent as an angel
and is incapable of doing wrong. I beg she may be permitted to return to her
friends in Philadelphia or to come to me, as she may choose; from your Ex-
cellency I have no fears on her account, but she may suffer from the mistaken
fury of the country.

“I have to request that the inclosed letter may be delivered to Mrs. Arnold,
and she permitted to write to me.

“I have also to ask that my clothes and baggage which are of little conse-
quence may be sent to me. If required, their value shall be paid in money.

“I have the honor to be

“With great regard and esteem,

“Your Excellency’s most obedient humble servant

“B. Arnold.

“N. B. In justice to the gentlemen of my family, Colonel Varick and
Major Franks, I think myself in honor bound to declare, that they, as well as
Joshua Smith, Esquire, who I know is suspected, are totally ignorant of any
transactions of mine that they had reason to believe were injurious to the
public.”

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 245

After a week of trial and consideration. Major Andre received
sentence to be hanged as a spy. The young officer, whose own in-
genuous valor and scorn of cunning had betrayed him into his
disguise and into the hands of the three freebooters whose good
fortune it had been to capture him, was an object of general com-
passion. But for all that, he was a spy, and the chief accomplice
in the conspiracy, and it was not a time for lenity. Before a great
concourse, civil and military, he was executed.

The death of Andre must have been as sharp an agony to Arnold
as it was to Clinton and the staff, but in a different way. He wrote
again to Washington.

“Sir,—

“The wanton execution of a gallant British officer in cold blood may be
only the prelude to further butcheries on the same ill-fated occasion. Necessity
compelled me to leave behind me in your camp a wife and offspring, that are
endeared to me by every sacred tie.

“If any violence be offered to them, remember I will revenge their wrongs
in a deluge of American blood.

“Yours, etc.

“B. Arnold.

'‘New York, October 5, 1780 ”

As for Peggy, and the offspring, Washington had offered her
the choice of New York or Philadelphia, and she had chosen
Philadelphia.

IV. Providence is Congratulated.

The treason of Arnold threw all the American spies into a panic,
“seems to have frightened,” said Washington, “all my intelli-
gencers out of their senses.” Arnold, however, had but little on that
score to reveal, and for the Americans, the advantages of his plot,
so providentially thwarted, appeared immediately. It not only
afforded conspicuous evidence of Divine favor, for which thanks
were duly offered in public proclamation, it gave the cause what

2 46 BENEDICT ARNOLD

long searching and experimentation had not until then discovered,
a perfect villain. Arnold’s example was expected to strengthen the
loyalist party, but it only added infamy to the name of Tory. When
Clinton sent emissaries with offers of wages and warm quarters
to the revolting Pennsylvania Line, they spurned fiercely the idea
of “becoming Arnolds,” and the men were hanged.

In Philadelphia, the news of the treason brought an instant re-
action of hangings in effigy. This pleasurable sport culminated in
a grand public parade on the thirtieth of September, at the center
of which, to the tune of Rogues’ March, the figure of Arnold was
borne upon a cart. For this representation the citizens had called
for the services of their artist, Captain Peale, and the resulting float
was an object of universal applause. Surrounded by elegant trans-
parencies depicting the events at West Point, the traitor rode,
seated, as had been his wont, with the left leg across a chair. He
was double-faced, holding in his hand a mask. In front of him on
a large green transparency, his crimes were set forth. Behind him
stood the devil prodding him with a pitchfork and holding out a
bag of money. Towns vied with one another in the exactness of
their figures of Arnold and the devil, and the elaborate detail of
their hangings or burnings. At his native Norwich, and elsewhere
in New England, the traitor was henceforth substituted for His
Holiness or Guy Fawkes in “Pope Day’s” annual expressions of
abhorrence.

In the human tendency to exaggerate a mystery, and to imagine
vast ramifications to conspiracies, there was a hurried search for
tangible victims among the Tory class. Had all who were arrested
been active conspirators, the plot would have been an absurdly
weak one, and against none who were tried, merchants of Phila-
delphia, Franks, Varick, and others, could proof be found. Of the
traitor’s family, his sons made their way to New York. A young
cousin, whom Arnold had helped in his schooling, enlisted now
and served with John Paul Jones. Hannah Arnold went home to
New Haven. “Let me ask the pity of all my friends,” she wrote

THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE 247

sadly. “Never was there a more proper object of it. Forsake me not
in my distress, I conjure you.”

In 1784, when Lafayette came to Fredericksburg to pay his re-
spects to the mother of Washington he found her in simple,
homespun raiment, a plain straw hat over her white hair, at work
among her flowers. The young Marquis praised his General
effusively. And to this the old lady replied, quite simply, “I am not
surprised at what George has done, for he was always a very good
boy.”

Similarly, the people of Norwich and New Haven were never
tired of reiterating that they were not surprised by Benedict Arnold,
who had always been a remarkably bad one. Wayne had felt fore-
warned by the “peculate talents,” and the “dirty, dirty acts,” by
which Arnold had made two ends meet in the last months. Samuel
Adams and James Lovell and other of the critics of Washington
dilated on their previous suspicions. But in spite of Arnold’s rude
breaking of all the ties of friendship, sturdy John Lamb refused to
allow his reputation as a soldier to suffer. Arnold had offered his
compliments by a flag of truce and Lamb had replied that when
the traitor was hanged he would be willing to go barefoot to see
the execution. He once deplored, at mess, that so capable a soldier
should prove so despicable a villain. A brigadier of Gates’ staff
contradicted him.

“Consummate courage, sir! Where has he ever exhibited any
proof of such qualities?” Lamb mentioned some instances.

“Pshaw, sir. Mere Dutch courage. He was drunk, sir.”

“Sir,” said Lamb, “let me tell you, that drunk or sober, you
will never be an Arnold, or fit to compare with him in any mili-
tary capacity.” The table was hushed, a challenge in order, and
hotly forthcoming, when General Putnam, in his guttural lisp, in-
terrupted the dispute.

“Whatth all thith? God cuth it, gentlemen, let the traitor go!
Here’s Wathington’s health in a brimmer.”

To him who would most have enjoyed the pleasures of “I told

248 BENEDICT ARNOLD

you so,” they were denied. At the time of the treason, Colonel
John Brown was in command of the militia near Stone Arabia, out
in the Mohawk country. A few days later he was leading a small
party through the wilderness. The men were halted by a sudden
warning cry, followed instantly by a murderous hidden fire. And
the officer, conspicuous by his sword and the bright sash around
his waist, fell forward, pierced through the heart.

The Shippens now enlarged on their former hesitancy in agree-
ing to Peggy’s marriage. They did all in their power to allay the
suspicions of the Council. But the letter from Andre had been
found, and a letter of Peggy’s criticizing some ladies at a concert
was deemed incriminating evidence. They pled that she was willing
never to write to her husband and to submit all letters from him
to examination. As for Peggy, she kept to her room, on the bed
most of the time, in hapless misery. Late in October, the Council
decreed that she leave the state within two weeks. There was a
common feeling that the plot had begun with her marriage, and
that she was at the bottom of it.

“Our correspondent,” an editor sagely observed, in introducing
the subject of Mrs. Arnold, “concludes with the remark on the
fallacious and dangerous sentiments so frequently avowed in this
city, that female opinions are of no consequence in public matters.
The Romans thought far otherwise, or we should not have heard
of the Clelias, the Cornelias, and the Anias of antiquity; and had
we thought and acted like them we should have despised and ban-
ished from social intercourse every character, whether male or
female, which could be so lost to virtue, decency and humanity,
as to revel with the murderers and plunderers of their countrymen.”

Peggy stayed her full two weeks, and then set out for New
York, her father at her side. There were no angry demonstrations
as the pale little woman came by. One village, where they stopped,
even postponed its carting and hanging of the traitor that she might
pass a quiet night.

CHAPTER XII

THE PROUD WARRIOR
I. A British Brigadier.

The pinnacles of Benedict Arnold’s career stand in the five
crowded years of war, between the Captain of the Governor’s
Guards, and the scheming Major-General at West Point. He came
to New York, a refugee, at the mercy of the man whose dearest
friend was to die in his place, and into a society that was unsympa-
thetic and distrustful from the first. But there was no surrender
or no weakening of purpose and the twenty years that followed
are as vivid and romantic in their struggle as all that had gone
before.

Late on the twenty-fifth, before a faint evening breeze, the
Vulture crept up to the lights of the city, and dropped anchor in
the still, black water. In the morning, an object of wonder and
curiosity as the story leaked out, the renegade landed and was
escorted to headquarters. “A lively little man,” wrote Lord
Loughborough, “and more like a Gentleman than nine out of ten
General officers.” He showed no awkwardness among them, but an
easy and pleasant confidence mingled with his wonted formality.
Repugnance, for a time, was smothered by strategic necessity. The
delivery of West Point having failed, all the bargaining was void.
It was necessary, however, to treat the traitor well, in the hope that
his example and welcome might inspire other supporters of the
wavering rebel cause to do likewise. The English press presented
a flattering view of a man who had acted sternly under stern con-
viction. “The loss of such an experienced officer,” a London paper
declared, “must be severely felt by the Americans, and his known

249

250

BENEDICT ARNOLD

probity will make that cause appear very bad, which he could no
longer support with honour.” Secret rebel sympathizers in the
city were being arrested and, for all the sad plight of Andre, a
feeling of optimism prevailed, even among those who could not
admire the traitor. “The ship is sinking,” people said, “when the
rats begin to leave her.”

Arnold was not without friends at headquarters, where it was
currently reported that he had offered to return in exchange for
Andre. The Americans had made a proposal of the sort to Clinton,
but it was hardly in accord with his program for encouraging politi-
cal conversions. Clinton cut down the promised ten thousand
pounds to six thousand guineas and allowed him the rank of
Brigadier-General of provincial troops. He penned a vindication of
his actions, which was at once published as a broadside. He reported
his conduct to the ministry, and offered a plan for future action.
Assume the rebel soldiers’ arrears of pay, he advised, and add a
bounty for deserters, half down, the rest at the end of the war.
Washington might succumb to a title. Form a commission with
decisive powers to offer a liberal peace. Proceed with force against
what opposition would remain. The rest of the document was
filled with personal sufferings and their insufficient compensation.

New York, burdened now with barracks and prisons, was no
longer the charming provincial town it once had been. The trees
had been cut down, the ground torn up by fortifications, both
British and American. Successive fires had destroyed many of the
houses. Almost deserted at one time, its population had been raised
again by an influx of Tory refugees. To young Nicholas Cresswell
the flavor of the city was not a pleasant one. “Noisesome vapours,”
he observed, “arise from the mud left in the docks and slips at
low water, and unwholesome smells are occasioned by such a num-
ber of people being crowded together in so small a compass almost
like herrings in a barrel, most of them very dirty and not a small
number sick of some disease, the Itch, Pox, Fever, Flux, so that all
together there is a complication of stinks, enough to drive a person

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THE PROUD WARRIOR 251

whose sense of smelling was very delicate and his lungs of the
finest contexture, into a consumption in a space of twenty-four
hours. If any author had an inclination to write a treatise upon
stinks and ill smells, he never could meet with more subject matter
than in New York, or anyone who had abilities and inclinations to
expose the vicious and unfeeling part of human nature, or the
various arts, ways and means, that are used to pick up a living in
this world, I recommend New York as a proper place to collect his
characters.” There were, however, a small but pleasantly sophisti-
cated society and an orderly government in which the citizens were
allowed to share. Important in the concerns of both, there walked
an elderly, amiable individual, Major-General James Robertson.

Robertson had begun his soldier’s life as a private. He was a
plodding, careful Scotchman, with a good Scotch burr in his voice.
“Jemmy” he was called, not always good-naturedly. In 1779 he had
been made one of the Board of Commissioners for restoring peace,
and had succeeded Tryon as civil governor of New York. He was
full of plans and ideas on both of these subjects, which he delivered
to the public in successive well-intentioned proclamations. He enter-
tained the mistaken opinion that the flood of refugee Tories into
the city represented a general desire to live under British civil gov-
ernment. In New York society he was known for his love of a good
table. In the town he was suspected of using his position for profit
and was exposed to a popular abuse similar to that of Arnold at
Philadelphia except that he received it without any noticeable
perturbation or remark. He was pictured groveling before young
girls as he poured his ill-gotten wealth at their feet, and it was
common to speak of a clipped coin as a “Robertson.” He had, in
point of fact, had a finger in the trade with the rebels, in which
concealment was but a formality, for it brought in valuable supplies,
and he did enjoy a chat with the ladies. He had come in contact
with the rebels in varied capacities. He had a part in the main-
tenance of the American prisoners, which put him in a position
to offer advantageous terms to such errant subjects as might be

BENEDICT ARNOLD

252

persuaded to return to their allegiance. His only success in this
field, however, was with General Parsons of Connecticut, who
insisted on keeping a leg on each side of the fence. He had been
one of the Committee that had gone up the Hudson to plead for
the life of Andre. It was at his house in New York that Arnold
found his first quarters, and there he received the famous General
with a courteous interest.

A legend went abroad to prove that the guest was not a welcome
one. It was the duty of the aides and general officers in turn to
accompany Arnold on his rides through the town, and Robertson’s
aide objects, swearing he will not be seen with such a scoundrel.

“Hut! hut! mun!” says old Jemmy, giving a hitch to his breeches,
“what do ye think of my feelings?”

Three brigadiers now commanded the provincial auxiliaries,
Oliver DeLancey, Courtlandt Skinner and Benedict Arnold. Their
commands, however, were small, for the American loyalists, while
great in number, were far behind the radical party in martial ardor.
They were wont to rely upon His Majesty’s seemingly inexhaustible
supply of troops, much as the patriots were coming to rely upon
the support of France. Several bodies had been raised, however,
and had served with distinction, notable among them for their
fine esprit de corps, Colonel John Graves Simcoe’s Queen’s Rangers
Huzzars, coated in green with blue collars and cuffs, and crowned
with tall leather caps. Simcoe was popular with the American
loyalists, a splendidly efficient soldier with a brilliant career in state
and army before him. Arnold at once began the organization of a
similar force, the American Legion. The promise of a dashing
cavalry corps attracted a number of stalwart young men, and the
General’s three strong sons, mere boys as they were, received com-
missions. Within two weeks, seventy-five troopers were on the
muster rolls. These briskly moving activities the rebels were now
making a desperate effort to interrupt.

During the Revolution the English and Americans had amused
themselves with the sport, uncommon in other wars, of stealing

THE PROUD WARRIOR 253

one another’s generals. The Continental army had been relieved for
a while of a dangerously overrated officer when some of the
troopers of his old command in Portugal had roused Major-General
Charles Lee from his bed and carried him off to New York. A few
months later, in July, ’seventy-seven, General Robert Prescott,
commanding the British forces in Rhode Island, had been spirited
away by a daring Yankee officer. The English, however, had slapped
last when a small party slipped up the Sound to Fairfield and
seized the person of General Gold Silliman, of Ridgefield fight.
Immediately on the desertion of Arnold large rewards had been
offered for his capture, for, costly as the business might prove, no
amount of hangings in effigy could replace the satisfaction to be
derived from a genuine execution. There were several attempts at
an apprehension. One has become justly famous for its story of
adventure. Beneath it lay the repressed, the long-lived, deep burning
anger of Washington.

A plan was formed before the end of September. The Com-
mander-in-chief consulted Major Henry Lee, in whose famous
Partisan Legion it would not be difficult to find a young man with
the cool daring needed for the scheme. To Sergeant-Major John
Champe, of tried courage, the honor was accorded, a tall Virginian
of twenty-four years, powerful of body and with a quiet, thoughtful
countenance that was not easily read. Washington was well pleased
with the young man, whose dark face lighted with excitement as
the mission was explained. He was to enter New York as a deserter
and enlist in a loyalist corps. He was to test the truth of recent
evidence that another American general was negotiating with the
enemy, and, with the aid of spies in the city, he was to form and
execute a plan for the capture of Arnold. Glory and a more mer-
cenary reward were promised. There was only one obstacle. Up to
that time but one dragoon had deserted from the Legion. The
Sergeant refused to be known to his comrades as the second turn-
coat, and only with the greatest difficulty were the two officers able
to persuade him that a point of honor might at times be disregarded.

254

BENEDICT ARNOLD

Sergeant Champe, accordingly, became the second deserter,
pounding at a gallop through a dark night, down the west bank of
the Hudson toward New York. Light Horse Harry did what he
could to delay the chase, but the men soon found the mark of the
Legion’s horseshoes and were hot on the trail. Again and again
the pursuers came within sight of the rider, and once they all but
cut him off. Two British galleys lay on the river near Bergen.
Champe dropped from his horse and raced across a swamp, drawn
sword in hand, calling at the bank for help. He was swimming for
his life upon the river when boats slid out from the ships and
opened fire on the infuriated dragoons.

Champe was welcomed at headquarters. He presented the or-
derly book of his corps, and gave information that might be proven
correct. Now that Arnold had changed sides, he asserted as his
opinion that the rebels would soon be deserting in regiments. He
was introduced to Arnold, who listened with pleasure to the story
of his escape and gave him the rank of Sergeant-Major in the
American Legion. He next found the spies, who thereafter kept him
in touch with headquarters, and he soon proved that the charges
of further treachery that had worried Washington were false. He
was urged to hasten the capture of the apostate, in the hope of
substituting him for Andre. Timothy Brinly Mount, a storekeeper
in New York who had once been pressed into service in a Tory
regiment, made it his business to learn Arnold’s habits. By day
and by night, the traitor was shadowed through the streets, and
the house watched. Mount had a bill against Arnold for liquor,
which enabled him to enter the quarters. By these means it was
discovered that the General returned thither at twelve in the eve-
ning, and, before retiring, walked to a shaded enclosure at the rear
of the garden behind the house. There, hidden by the shrubbery,
he could be seized and gagged. Ten days had elapsed. Word was
sent to Lee, who was to be waiting in the woods at Hoboken with
a few dragoons. Palings in the tall fence around the garden were
loosened for their entrance. The streets were chosen by which the

THE PROUD WARRIOR

255

prisoner could be carried to the waterfront. If stopped, they would
tell a story of a drunken soldier being carried home. Champe had
five men to aid him with the final act.

But the act was never played. On the day before, Arnold moved
to quarters nearer the river, where he could supervise the embarka-
tion of troops destined for a raiding expedition. As the American
Legion consisted chiefly of deserters, and what had happened once
might very logically be expected to happen again, the little corps
was the first to be ordered into the transports. John Champe, in
futile fury and disgust, found himself a British soldier on a British
ship of war, and without him the adventure was not attempted.
There the old ballad ends its tale.

“Full soon the British fleet set sail!

Say! wasn’t that a pity?

For then it was brave Sergeant Champe
Was taken from the City.

“To southern climes the shipping flew.

And anchored in Virginia,

When Champe escaped and joined his friends
Among the picinnini.

“Base Arnold’s head, by luck was saved.

Poor Andre was gibbeted.

Arnold’s to blame for Andre’s fame,

And Andre’s to be pitied.”

Unconscious of how narrowly he had been spared to her, Peggy
came in from Philadelphia to stand again by her husband’s side
and watch him across the table. She was a woman, untroubled by
detached ethical standards, and in his care fears were quieted again
and she loved him still. She was followed into the city by tales of
marital infidelities inspired by her husband’s political faithlessness,
but her devotion and dependence were too apparent for them long
to survive. She was received in headquarters society with distinction,

BENEDICT ARNOLD

256

and had, as a good gossip set it down in writing, as much attention
paid her “as if she had been Lady Clinton.” She seemed saddened,
the good lady observed, not in accord with the life of plays and
gaming and amorous adventuring which the presence of the army’s
gay and gallant young officers had brought upon the town. “P — A —
is not so much admired here for her beauty as one might have
expected. All allow she has great Sweetness in her countenance,
but wants Animation, sprightliness and that fire in her eyes which
was so captivating in Capt. L.’s wife.” She became a heroine of
the expected movement for returning to the King’s allegiance, and,
as it seemed to be the custom to measure such actions in pecuniary
terms, received the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds for her
“services,” which, as Sir Henry Clinton assured die world some
years later, were “very meritorious.”

Three hundred and fifty pounds, however, were not sufficient to
appease the General’s outraged consciousness of the justice of his
intentions. There was an inevitable coldness between Clinton and
Arnold which necessity forbade either to express. Arnold, with all
his fire and tacdessness, had pled with Sir Henry to march out of
the city and crush Washington and Rochambeau in the field, and
when the plan was rejected, offered to deliver the stroke himself
with five thousand men. “It would be much better now,” an
Englishman observed, “for General Arnold to be in London than
at New York.” Clinton had Gates’ contempt for unnecessary risks.
His forces were insufficient for certain conquest, or even for out-
posts such as those attempted at Newport and Philadelphia. It was
therefore his policy to send out successive formidable expeditions to
destroy the American commerce and economic life, a policy which
served only to exasperate the country, and had already destroyed all
possibility of a reconciliation.

The old men at headquarters, Robertson and Admiral Rodney,
were also a nuisance to the harassed Commander-in-chief. Con-
cerning Robertson, he wrote, “People put strange things in his head,
as you will see by one of his proclamations about opening courts

THE PROUD WARRIOR 257

of law. I give him all power, patronage, everything but what would
ruin us, Civil Government in our present state. Between the two
old gentlemen I am almost Mad, but Robertson is more tractable
and above chicane.” Robertson had returned from England in April,
1780, and had set himself at once to do what he could toward the
restoration of civil government in the few acres that still remained
to His Majesty, and in this work Arnold joined him with enthusi-
asm, and included the idea in his suggestions to the Ministry.
Malicious rumor insisted that it was merely a plot of Robertson and
his friends to put themselves in better position for exacting graft.
There is no evidence, however, to doubt the sincerity or the modest
ethics of the old Scotchman, and Arnold had no time for petty
gambling. He must prove his worth to the lagging British cause.
Clinton saw in the scheme for civil government only a foolhardy
attempt to saddle him with some such blundering Congress as that
which was burdening the rebels. But Arnold knew the American
militia system well, and believed that if the loyalists established
the same, supported by a democratic civil government, the old con-
servative party, which still lay inactive throughout the country,
could be brought into the field, a rising which the struggling little
rebel army could not withstand.

Clinton was suspicious of Arnold, and knew that he would be
held responsible for him. Nevertheless, it was policy to honor him
with a post in the field and convenience to get him out of New
York, and he was assigned to the command of an expedition to
Virginia, his zeal in preparing for which had already saved him
from the young Sergeant-Major of his corps. Colonels Simcoe and
Dundas, in the complete confidence of Sir Henry, were to watch
for signs of treachery and guard against rashness, and what Simcoe
remarked was Arnold’s “gasconading disposition and military igno-
rance.” His orders were to destroy the public resources of Virginia
consisting, notably, of tobacco. On the tenth of December the fleet
sailed.

Scattered by a furious gale, the ships were forming again on the

258 BENEDICT ARNOLD

thirteenth off the capes of the Chesapeake. With three transports
still unsighted, Arnold sailed up the James, landed at Westover on
the fourth of January, and marched for Richmond with eight hun-
dred men, half of his complete array. Virginia was taken by
surprise, utterly unprepared. Governor Thomas Jefferson offered a
reward of five thousand pounds for the traitor. But the militia, a
scant two hundred, were utterly inadequate for resistance. On the
fifth, the invaders were at Richmond, a mere village then, and
Arnold, with his eye for a saving and a bargain, sent word to the
Governor that if his ships were allowed to pass unmolested up the
river and bring down the captured stores, the warehouses would
not be fired. This was refused. In a haze of tobacco smoke, drunken
soldiers roared merrily through the streets for a while. Arnold was
seizing private property to supply his army, paying half the cur-
rent price. Hatred greatly exaggerated the extent and ruthlessness
of the destruction. The discomfited Virginians were preparing a
great fireship, the Dragon, with which to destroy his fleet, but it
came to nothing. Burning a few foundries and magazines in the
neighborhood, Arnold returned with - fleet and army to Portsmouth,
and there entrenched for the winter.

There he had established a base from which the work of de-
struction might be concluded in the spring. But the mere presence
of Arnold doubled the interest in the campaign, and circumstances
continued to increase its importance. A plan was projected for a
French flotilla to destroy Arnold’s fleet and leave him at the mercy
of the gathering militia. The ships were sent, but found themselves
unable to attack at an advantage, and returned. In the meantime,
Virginia had brought some four thousand men into the field, and
on the nineteenth of March, General Muhlenberg brought five
hundred men into action in a hot skirmish before the works at
Portsmouth. His advance was checked at a narrow dyke by a
Hessian Captain with a scant two score chasseurs. “On these occa-
sions,” Captain Ewald theorized, “we must screw the heels of our
shoes firmly to the ground, an'd not think of moving off, and we

THE PROUD WARRIOR 259

shall seldom find an adversary who will run over us in such a
position.” Ewald was wounded in the knee, and Arnold visited him
after the fight. Angrily, in his thick accent, the German demanded
why he had not been reinforced. Arnold replied that he had thought
the position untenable.

“So long as one chasseur lives,” the wounded man retorted, “no
damned American shall come over the dyke.” Arnold was piqued,
and refused to mention the chasseurs in his reports, until the com-
plaints of officers forced him to do so, with an apology.

In the meantime, the Marquis de Lafayette, with a body of
picked troops, was marching south to take charge of the opera-
tions before Portsmouth, to create a diversion favorable to the
plans of General Greene in South Carolina, and with orders, should
the traitor fall into his power, to put him to death in the most sum-
mary manner. In answer to this challenge, three thousand men
were dispatched from New York, under Major-General William
Phillips. Phillips, the haughty conquerer of Ticonderoga, was not
an officer to regard General Arnold as his social equal. He had
been exchanged for Lincoln, whom Clinton had taken at his cap-
ture at Charleston, and now, outranking the energetic brigadier,
he superseded him in the command. He arrived on the twenty-
sixth of March. A month later, the combined armies marched in-
land on Petersburgh, for a new compaign of fire and devastation,
enlivened by sharp skirmishes. They defeated a rebel force and took
Petersburgh. There John Champe had at last the pleasure of de-
serting to the motley army of Continentals and militia under
Lafayette, which was dogging the traitor’s marches but still too
weak for resistance. Arnold was detached against an American
squadron on the James, which, with his round shot thundering
across close to the surface of the water, he soon saw scuttled by
its crews and abandoned in flames. Phillips, meanwhile, marched
to Manchester, and a new conflagration was lighted, the sweet
scented smoke rolling over the river to Richmond where Lafayette
waited, too weak to risk an action. On the seventh of May, Phillips

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BENEDICT ARNOLD

fell ill with a fever, and Arnold succeeded to the command. On
the thirteenth, the army returned to Petersburgh, where, on that
day, Phillips died. When Lafayette heard of the event, and learned
that a communication on the exchange of prisoners was from the
hand of Arnold, he expressed a polite regard for the English army,
but refused to hold any intercourse with the traitor. Arnold was in
a blustering fury, full of futile threats of vengeance. To further his
annoyance, there was a common rumor that he had poisoned
Phillips to get control of the army.

At the same time, the face of the campaign was changing again.
Lord Cornwallis was in North Carolina with nearly three thousand
men. He decided that before dealing with Greene, to the south
of him, he would join Phillips, to the north, and complete the con-
quest of Virginia, on whom Greene was depending for supply of
reinforcements. With Arnold’s help, the junction was easily effected
at Petersburgh, Lafayette unable to offer any serious resistance.
Arnold, in spite of Cornwallis’ friendly interest in his career, was
not eager to continue in a subordinate command, away from Peggy,
from headquarters and the prosecution of his plan for reuniting
the empire. He at once asked, and received, permission to return
to New York. For him the campaign had ended. For Cornwallis
it continued to October and culminated in the capitulation at
Yorktown.

He returned in June, his fortune increased by more than two
thousand pounds prize money. In July he called on William Smith,
Chief Justice under Robertson’s civil government, and expressed
himself on a few points. He was disgusted at the inactivity. Wash-
ington was moving about the outskirts of New York with entirely
too much freedom. Cornwallis, in Virginia with only seven
thousand men, should be reinforced, and he himself would be
willing to march to his support with any force they would give
him. With a command and a free rein, he would by this time have
driven the Congress out of Philadelphia, and made His Majesty’s
power felt throughout the Colonies. The Virginia raids had obvi-

THE PROUD WARRIOR

261

ously accomplished nothing to his satisfaction, and he was embit-
tered by the lack of any sweeping success following his change of
allegiance.

He had proven himself a vigorous and efficient officer, and yet
he had done nothing to clear his name of the shadow upon it.
His proclamation in Virginia summoning the inhabitants to join
him in repelling the rebel “banditti” had failed of any effect. His
zeal to prove himself worthy and loyal, on the other hand, by a
prompt and rigorous prosecution of his orders, had brought upon
himself and his men an undeserved reputation for wanton bar-
barity. Conscious of the difficulties of his situation, he had taken
pains to protect the inhabitants from plundering or other irregu-
larities popular among invading armies. It was essential, however,
that he raise no doubts of the fidelity of his new allegiance by any
lenity in carrying out his instructions. The reputation for barbarity
was none the less acquired, and reflected to the troops he com-
manded.

The British soldier, whom the Americans now regarded as a
monster of brutality, was, quite frequently, a good, hymn-singing
Methodist, and a good fellow among his comrades at all times. He
was more thoroughly part of a military machine than the American
fighter, but was not always, even in action, swayed by the passion
to kill. Young Nicholas Stoner, full of the devil and rebellion, as
wild a boy as ever came out of the backwoods, never forgot the big
grenadier who pulled him out of the way of a comrade’s bayonet
thrust with a ponderous, “Vast, shipmate, it’s only a child.” The
English soldiers had their opinions and ideals, and General Arnold,
much as they may have admired him as an enemy, was not easily
to win their respect.

On the twenty-seventh of August Margaret’s second boy was
born, and they christened him in honor of James Robertson. A
soldier’s son, with a soldier’s name, he was to win distinction in
the field, and then at Court, and to rise to the highest rank in
the army. A week later, the father sailed in command of a new

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BENEDICT ARNOLD

marauding force, the record of which was to complete his reputation
for truculent ferocity.

Large deposits of stores were carried at New London, poorly
defended. Of especial interest was the British armed ship, Hannah,
with a cargo valued at eighty thousand pounds, captured that sum-
mer by the New London privateer, Minerva. Arnold was eager for
action, and his knowledge of the country fitted him for the work.

In the first hour of the morning of September sixth his ships
were struggling with an unfavorable wind off the threatened
harbor, and the sun was up before they could beat into the channel.
New London, on the west bank of the Thames, had only the
feeble defenses of Fort Trumbull, but across the water, on the high
eminence over Groton village, Fort Griswold offered a more diffi-
cult problem. Griswold was firing the “ ’larum” to the countryside,
two guns at regular intervals, and Arnold destroyed the effect of
this by bringing in, properly timed, a third salute from one of his
own ships. Two miles below the town, at about nine in the morn-
ing, he landed his men, a division on each side of the river. One
division marched for Groton Heights. He himself, with the other,
took Fort Trumbull without difficulty and entered New London.
The people were moving their ships out of reach up the river. This
it was impossible for him to prevent until Fort Griswold fell. Fort
Griswold, moreover, was annoying the new garrison of Fort Trum-
bull with a bombardment to which it was unable to reply. Arnold
had been told that the works at Groton were unfinished and
manned by a force of twenty or thirty. He and his staff rode to a
hill above New London to watch the capture, and there realized
immediately that the little earthen redoubt, its cannon bellowing
in confident defiance across the river, would not be taken as easily
as he had expected. He dispatched an aide to countermand his
orders to Lieutenant-Colonel Eyre to attack, but the message arrived
too late.

Eyre had already received a refusal to his summons and was
advancing on three sides of the works in solid columns, broad gaps

THE PROUD WARRIOR 263

repeatedly torn, in his ranks by a murderous fire of great shot from
the fort. He fell wounded, but his men pushed on irresistibly, gained
lodgements in the outer defenses, and, with the battle nearly an
hour old, broke through a last desperate stand, and poured into the
open parade of the fort. The little garrison of a hundred and fifty
was at the mercy of the infuriated men, who had now their first
chance to avenge their losses in the assault. The Commandant,
Lieutenant-Colonel William Ledyard, advanced toward the victors,
holding his sword by the blade, raising and lowering it in sign
of surrender. It was thrust through his body as the wave of scarlet
swept over, and there followed a brief orgy of vengeance. An
officer ran wildly about, waving his sword, screaming, “Stop! Stop!
In the name of Heaven! My soul can’t bear it!” A young Yankee
sergeant found himself pleading for his life from a big soldier
stabbing blindly at him with his bayonet and roaring, “Bejasus,
I’ll skipper ye!” Captain Bromfield, now in command of the vic-
tors, came upon some of the maddened men shooting down the
rebels who had fled into the magazine and beat them back with
his sword, shouting to them, “Stop firing! You will send us all
to hell together!” The massacre was quickly over. Bromfield re-
tired with about sixty prisoners, half their number wounded, and
the fort was blown up behind them.

Arnold immediately turned to the burning of the warehouses,
and these, with a shift in the wind and explosions of gunpowder,
fired the town. In the rush and confusion there was no hope of
controlling the fires, which offered the Americans one more atrocity
for their formidable list, and was deeply regretted by Clinton. The
massacre was but a normal consequence of such an attack, but the
burning of New London and the outcry that followed it seemed
to prove that General Arnold could not be used to advantage in the
American war.

“Arnold did not return until yesterday afternoon from New
London owing to Head Winds,” Justice Smith confided gloomily
to his diary. “It is a bad symptom that the Army thinks their

264 BENEDICT ARNOLD

Losses greater than the Rebels. G. R. talks in this pitiable Strain.
He is a Dotard and abandoned to Frivolity. He has Parties of Girls
in the Fort Garden, in the midst of his and our Fears, and the
Anxieties of the Hour.”

Arnold was back in New York in time for the parades and ban-
queting that welcomed the visit of the young Prince William
Henry, a pleasant boy with a taste for sports, later to become King
W illiam IV, the freedom of whose activities inspired the Americans
with the hope of a kidnapping. On the nineteenth of October, to
the popular rhythm of The World Turned upside down, York-
town was surrendered with seven thousand men, and the Ministry
abandoned all hope of continuing the war. Lord Cornwallis, ex-
changed for Henry Laurens, then a prisoner in the Tower of
London, returned to New York. Arnold, for want of other occupa-
tion, concocted a plan to steal the journals of Congress, but his
spies were betrayed by an accomplice. He himself was in constant
danger of capture or assassination, and it was decided that he
should go to England. Clinton provided him with a letter to His
Majesty’s Secretary of State for the American Colonies, Lord George
Germaine, “earnestly commending him to his Lordship’s counte-
nance and protection.” On the fifteenth of December they sailed,
Arnold on board the warship Rohuste, still endeavoring to persuade
his fellow passenger, Cornwallis, that the war was not over, and
Peggy, with the children and her servants, in more comfortable
quarters on a merchantman.

11 . The Fire-eater Comes to Court.

England’s welcome to the dark little American adventurer was
the matter of political allegiance. The supporters of the Ministry,
whom adverse circumstances had greatly decreased in numbers,
could excuse or tolerate. The Whigs, however, were unsparing in
their denunciations of the purchase of this burdensome, blundering,
American butcher’s son and horse trader. The Ministers, faced by

THE PROUD WARRIOR 265

defeat at home as well as abroad, received him kindly and listened
to his plans. He was presented at Court, and won the intimate
confidence of the King. The soldier of fortune and the harassed old
monarch were united by the same passionate desire to retain the
American Colonies in the Empire, on which the honor of both
depended, by the same inability to face the shame of defeat. The
Queen desired the Ladies of the Court to pay especial attention to
Mrs. Arnold. The General’s finances were strengthened by annual
pensions of five hundred pounds for his lady and of one hundred
for each child. He had many private conferences with the King,
at whose request he set forth his plans for reconciliation and re-
union. His Thoughts on the American War was based on the
assumption, not wholly unfounded, that there were men through-
out the Colonies not in sympathy with the new regime. Only under
civil governments of their own would these loyalists take arms to
reestablish order.

“Nay,” he insisted, “an American Husbandman will no sooner
quit his farm and family, to become a common Soldier at six pence
a day wages with rations, than an English Gentleman of £500 a
year. He will not lend his hand to erect a military Misrule over
himself and his friends, and put all his Property at the Discretion
of an Arbitrary Police, that has cut the throat of the King’s Interest
wherever it has been set up.” The new movement, he suggested,
should begin with the conquest of the highlands of the Hudson,
close to the base and commanding a favorably disposed region. At
the same time, a new peace commission, composed of men of rank,
statesmen, not soldiers, should reerect the legislatures and treat
with the rebel government, whose members would prove amenable,
he felt sure, could they be secured, “from the vindictive rage of the
Multitude they have misled, oppressed and ruined, as well as from
the resentment of the crown.”

The plan interested the King, but a change in the government
was imminent, and the nation, which would not have begun the
war had it been experimentally minded, was weary of the conflict.

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BENEDICT ARNOLD

Germaine had already resigned. The most notable event of that
statesman’s marplot career had been his conviction of cowardice
and insubordination on the field of battle. Now his place in the
King’s confidence was filled by another military scapegrace. The
Ministry fell in 1782, and after a year of waiting and discussion,
the peace was concluded. On a crisp November day, in 1783, the
garrison of New York took to its ships, and Washington, with the
ragged Continentals, came in behind them, marching down the
Bowery to Broadway in the last review. Down to the harbor the
procession moved, and took possession of the Battery. There the
King’s ensign still flew, and the last act of the long drama was
to raise “Old Glory” in its stead. Here, however, there came a comic
interlude, for the Britishers, watching delightedly from the water,
had taken down pulleys and tackle from the flagstaff and greased
the pole against all climbers. But a sailor with hammer and cleats
made the ascent at last, and the new standard rose in the thunder
of salutes. And through the subsequent toasting and feasting and
fireworks, the fame of the apostate was prolonged in uproarious
roastings and hangings in effigy. With perfect truth, Arnold could
introduce himself to the inquiring Talleyrand as the only American
who had not a friend in America.

In England, the Treaty of Versailles had ended his last shadow
of military importance. The new Ministry protested against his
employment and it was reported that they had exacted from the
King a promise that British troops should not again be entrusted
to his command. He could win personal friends among such as
were not too scandalized to speak with him. There was a story
that the Earl of Surrey, seeing him in the gallery of the House of
Commons, had asked the Speaker to have him ordered out. There
had been hot little controversies in his detraction or defense, at
least one of which was carried to the field of honor. There were no
insults, however, of which Arnold felt that he could with dignity
take notice. He tried to renew the friendship of Silas Deane, who
had come to London after the treaty. Deane, exiled and im-

THE PROUD WARRIOR 267

poverished for his honesty, had allowed himself to be rescued by
English agents, who had paid him liberally for writing a series of
defeatist letters to friends in America where they were published
to the Americans, as having been captured in transit.

Poor Deane had scarcely been established in his English lodg-
ings, chatting with a number of gentlemen, when General Arnold
walked in, unannounced. A few polite questions passed back and
forth, Deane putting and answering them with as cold a civility
as he could muster. Arnold begged him to come to dinner. Deane
replied that it would be impossible for them to meet on the same
terms as formerly, but expressed a hope that he might be able to
call on Mrs. Arnold, from whom he had received so many courtesies
in Philadelphia. The American press, however, gloating over the
discomfiture of traitors, insisted on coupling the two men as
“bosom friends,” and kept Deane writing to Franklin and every one
who might help, insisting that he had seen Arnold only the few
times he had called in this abrupt manner, or passing through the
streets in his coach. Deane wished to be known as an American
still.

The General’s little family found life in London much more
expensive than in America, especially if one was to maintain one’s
dignity in the Court functions and the proper attiring of a Court
lady, and the General was not a man to neglect his dignity nor to
shun expense. Passing through Grosvenor Square in their carriage
one evening, at about eight o’clock, a horseman swung in from the
darkness, and with a guttural flood of threat and profanity, de-
manded their money, drawing a pistol from under his coat. Peggy
was terribly frightened. The General shot forward from his seat in
an effort to seize the man’s arm through the window, but a sudden
movement of the carriage jerked him away. The lights of another
coach appeared, and the incident, a momentary flurry of angry
voices and trampling hoofs, was over, as the rider wheeled and fled.

They visited Bath, and sought temporary retreats in the country.
Peggy was much of the time saddened and unwell. A daughter,

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BENEDICT ARNOLD

Margaret, born in 1783, had lived but a short while. And a boy
born in the following year and christened in honor of their royal
patron, George, lived but a few weeks. Their desultory life of social
contacts in London and in occasional visits to the country was
suited neither to Arnold’s temper nor to his modest fortune. His
friend, Cornwallis, who had done as much to aid him as could be
inconspicuously effected, was being urged by the new Ministry to
assume the Governor-Generalship of India. There was a province,
war-torn, wealthy and remote, an ideal field in which to rebuild
his broken fortunes. In July, 1784, Arnold wrote to Commodore
George Johnstone, a Director of the East India Company, who
had served with distinction in both America and the East.

He had desired only a redress of grievances, the fire-eater insisted,
and had taken his new stand only when definitely assured that the
Crown had renounced all intention of taxing America. The candid
must consider his conduct in the war “perfectly consistent with
the strict rules of honor.”

“Situated as I am, sir, unconnected and unsupported, having
nothing to recommend me but my poor abilities as a soldier, I will
notwithstanding venture to tender my services to the East India
Company, provided I am honored with your approbation and
patronage, without which I shall give up any idea of the matter.
I am sensible, sir, it is a favor I have no right to ask or expect. My
wish to serve the Company faithfully and make some provision
for a numerous family is the only apology I can make for the re-
quest, and I trust from your Honor, politeness and good nature,
you will think it a sufficient one.”

Johnstone’s reply was lengthy and filled with terms of admira-
tion and respect, but it summed up the problem with broad finality
in one brief statement of fact. “Although I am satisfied with the
purity of your conduct, the generality do not think so. While this
is the case, no power in this country could suddenly place you in
the situation you aim at under the East India Company.”

In the summer of ’eighty-five, the adventurer’s only surviving

THE PROUD WARRIOR 269

daughter was bora and given the name, again in grateful deference
to the royal house, Sophia Matilda.

At about this time, if a diplomatic anecdote can be trusted,
Arnold made the acquaintance of the British Consul at Tangier
to whom, having some influence at the Court of Morocco, he sug-
gested fitting out some ships of war, with which the Emperor, who
had yet no treaty with the United States, could prey upon the
American trade. Arnold knew the trade routes and promised for-
tunes for all concerned in the business, but the Englishman, it
seemed, who related the story for the edification of an American
envoy, was above such crude persuasion. Arnold had friends but
they could not help him. The wags jeered,

‘Tor camp or cabinet you’re made,

A jockey’s half a courtier trade,”

But the humiliating deferences and dependence on rank and favor
of a courtier’s life were unsuited to his nature.

“I saw Genl. Arnold the other day at court,” a visiting English-
man wrote home to his wife, “but his Lady was not there. I had
a good sight of him; his name was called over, and he passed in
a hurry; he is taken very little notice of. You remember the cir-
cumstance of his meeting a relative that was to leave him a fortune;
I am informed the man is a capricious mortal, and has now changed
his mind and is on no terms with the General, but has taken up
his old relations again; however, as the chap was rich, I wish he
would consider Mrs. Arnold, for by all accounts she is an amiable
woman, and was her husband dead, would be much noticed, which
at present it is impossible for them to do, except by one sett.”

The General was still supporting Hannah. Ben and Richard
and Harry were drawing the half pay of retired officers, but the two
younger seemed to have no military ambitions. His efforts to secure
a fuller reimbursement for his losses from the Board of Loyalist
Claims promised nothing. It was necessary that he maintain the

BENEDICT ARNOLD

270

household of an English gentleman and that the younger children
be reared as the station demanded. There was but one solution, a
return to the old trade he had learned so well, Canada, and the
Caribbean Sea. There, thanks to the war, he would now have no
competition from his former countrymen. Within a few months,
he had a good deck under foot, with England behind him, the gray
clouds of canvas overhead, adventure and opportunity on the broad
seas that lay before.

III. Lord Lauderdale is Sorry.

There were airs and evidences of social prestige which Benedict
Arnold, the rebel of New Haven, could not afford to display, but
which Benedict Arnold, the English gentleman, could use at his
pleasure. He revived, accordingly, the family coat of arms, with its
lion crest. But in place of the old motto, “My Glory is on high,”
he chose two words from an Ode of Horace, “never despair,” “nil
desperandum.”

Handicapped as he was by prejudice, the General was not fight-
ing with his back to the wall, or suffering from agonies of con-
science or from the prospect of what he might have been in
victorious America. It was enough for him to hate America and
all his enemies, to drive forcefully forward in his new environment,
conscious, as ever, of the rectitude of his intentions. Only Wash-
ington seems to have realized that he was not suffering the tor-
ments of a mental hell, that he lacked that sentimental refinement
called, in those days, “feeling.” The persistence of the picture of
Arnold’s life as an Englishman, passing in a torment of morbid
regrets, may largely be laid to the author of our Liberty Bell legend,
the lurid young romanticist of the roaring ’forties, George Lippard.
His new career was not completely a return to the old trade of
New Haven. He was an officer now of the world’s greatest empire,
a commercial empire, a friend of its King and one of its merchants.
Greatness was not yet to be attained in England, but Canada would

THE PROUD WARRIOR 271

offer the field for a new beginning, and, this time in peace, he
turned again to Canada for the making of his fortunes.

In November, 1785, the General’s brig, the Peggy, dropped
anchor off Halifax. A gentleman of that city announced his com-
ing to Ward Chipman, the leading citizen of St. John. “Will you
believe General Arnold is here from England, as he says, recon-
noitering the country. He is bound for your city, which he will of
course prefer to Halifax, and settle with you. Give you joy of the
acquisition.”

Ward Chipman, a lawyer and refugee loyalist from Massa-
chusetts, had settled in New Brunswick, where he was to rise
through sundry offices, to be President and Commander-in-chief
of his province. Chipman was above prejudice or fear of popular
disapproval, and a personal acquaintance with Arnold grew into
a lasting friendship.

General Arnold, therefore, settled at St. John, where he was
joined by Richard and Henry. He purchased a lot near the water-
front and built a store. His house was furnished in a style suiting
his taste and importance, “mahogany four post bedsteads, with
furniture,” according to a subsequent inventory, “a set of elegant
Cabriole chairs, covered with blue damask, sofas and curtains to
match; Card, Tea and other Tables, looking-glasses, a Secretary
desk and bookcase, fire screens, girandoles, lustres, an easy and
sedan chairs, with a great variety of other furniture. Likewise: an
elegant set of Wedgewood gilt ware, two tea table sets of Nankeen
china, a variety of glassware, a Terrestrial Globe.” Sometime in the
year that followed, there was born to him a natural son, who re-
ceived the name, John Sage, who lived, as he grew older, under
the care of Richard and Henry Arnold, and who was to receive
due provision in his father’s will.

The General enlarged his business by entering into partnership
with a merchant of St. John, Munson Hayt. In May he purchased
a new ship, not yet launched, and watched her slide down the
ways, christened the Lord Sheffield, in honor of the British econo-

272

BENEDICT ARNOLD

mist and statesman who was successfully opposing the relaxation
of the trade laws against the United States. Leaving his affairs at
St. John in the hands of Munson Hayt, he sailed in her for the West
Indian ports of trade.

Simultaneously, in the United States, his coming was a matter
of interest and excitement. It was reported that he was preparing
to enter an extensive smuggling trade with the land of the free.
Liberated America exulted in a continual flood of reports of how
“the American Syphax” was despised by all about him, “counte-
nanced by none, excepting their Britainic and Satanic majesties
and such of their adherents respectively, who are looking for pro-
motion under their royal masters.”

In the meantime, his affairs in England were in the trustworthy
hands of Margaret Arnold, now as able a supporter in practical
affairs as the other Margaret had been at New Haven. Peggy had
not encouraged, in her letters to her family in Pennsylvania, the
belief that she lived in subjugation to a monster in human form.
“General Arnold’s affection for me is unbounded,” she would
write, and, “He is the best of husbands.” She found England cold
and unfriendly without him, herself burdened with worries, with a
lawsuit which, at least, she had the satisfaction of winning.

‘‘My Dear and ever Honoured Papa:

“. ... I am still in the most unhappy state of suspense respecting the
General, not having heard from him since the account of his ship’s being
lost. . . .

“I assure you, my dear Papa, I find it necessary to summon all my philos-
ophy to my aid to support myself under my present situation.

“Separated from, and anxious for the fate of the best of husbands, torn from
almost everybody that is dear to me, harassed with a troublesome and ex-
pensive lawsuit, having all the General’s business to transact, and feeling that
I am in a strange country, without a creature near me that is really interested
in my fate, you will not wonder if I am unhappy.”

She soon heard from him of his safety, and he returned direcdy
to England from the Indies. A translation of the Marquis de Chas-

THE PROUD WARRIOR 273

tellux’ Travels in North America, highly offensive to Arnold, had
appeared, and was now answered by a pamphlet of Remarks, which
has been attributed to the aggrieved soldier of fortune, and which,
if all of its religious and political deductions are not his own, must
certainly have been the work of some one closely in touch with
him. The little work is solidly hostile to the French in general and
to the Marquis in particular. It declares in terms of the most posi-
tive conviction that Joseph Read contemplated treachery. It de-
preciates Washington, presents the victory of Saratoga as the only
great American triumph and incidentally, mentions Gates as “the
nominal conqueror of Burgoyne.”

“Who would have enjoyed the blessings of this age,” it inquires
in reference to the failure at West Point, “the active, enterprising
American Arnold, or the cool, designing, frenchified Washington?”

Together with this duty to fame behind them, with Edward
and James and little Sophia, a healthy, handsome baby of whom
her mother was extremely proud, they boarded the Peggy in the
summer of 1787 for St. John. In August, they were comfortably
settled in the handsome house on King Street. And early in Sep-
tember, another son was born, and named, a more substantial
compliment to the reigning monarch, George. In Canada, they
were busy, and had the pleasant sense of progress. Arnold invested
in a schooner sailing for the West Indies, but touching at an Ameri-
can port, where it might have met with a very poor reception had
his share in the venture been known. Congenial society, to be sure,
was small, for the people of St. John took pride in their detestation
of the traitor, and when these two were out on their rides together,
the General and his lady found themselves a target for pointing
fingers and unfriendly eyes.

They visited England in 1788. The General’s friends there had
fortunately persuaded him to insure the Canadian property, for
during their absence the warehouse at St. John burned to the
ground. Henry had been sleeping in the building at the time, and
barely escaped with his life. There were voices from the crowd,

BENEDICT ARNOLD

274

calling on Arnold to tell them if the fire resembled that at New
London. The incident afforded excellent material for a scandal,
and was seized upon for that purpose. General Arnold, according
to the popular decision, had fired the warehouse to collect the
insurance. Munson Hayt, whose partnership, like most of Arnold’s
business relations, had ended in mutual enmity, was among the
frankest in declaring his opinion, and the General, some months
later, brought suit against him for libel. Ward Chipman conducted
the prosecution, and won his case. The Jury, however, allowed the
plaintiff the satisfaction of only twenty shillings damages, and the
legal victory did not alter the conviction that General Arnold had
burned down his warehouse to collect the insurance. From every
circumstance of the fire a hostile inference was drawn. Even from
the narrow escape of Henry it was argued that he was waiting
inside to give the fire the best possible start. Nine of the jurors were
for allowing sixpence only. Hayt was a popular hero.

“The General, however,” a citizen wrote to a friend in Boston,
“bears all without showing the least symptom of discomposure, and
would, I doubt not, if sentenced to the gallows, make his exit like
a true Tyburn Nero.”

In October, the eccentric old King lapsed into temporary in-
sanity. His death would end the pensions to Margaret and her
children and, as his affection for Arnold was universally counted
among his peculiarities, there would be no hope of renewal. Mar-
garet still suffered from occasional nervous attacks, during which
her reason would sometimes leave her for days, and, no doubt,
suffered from the rather violent methods employed by her phy-
sicians to relieve them. But time and the ever-present concerns of
her husband or her children had strengthened and matured her.
She was proud of her husband, immensely proud of her strong
and comely children and of her ability to work for them. She had
a courage and a sense of responsibility which the timid little Peggy
of Philadelphia had never possessed. On her sister’s advice, she
decided not to increase her family further, that her health might

THE PROUD WARRIOR

275

be spared for the children already in her care. She was still close
to her family, especially to her father, writing to him long affec-
tionate letters, filled with a mingling of family news and business
detail.

Ever since the removal to St. John, Edward Shippen had hoped
that she might come home to Philadelphia for a time. For months,
the possibility had been planned, discussed and postponed. In the
autumn of ’eighty-nine, however, the decision was made at last,
with Margaret still hesitant to leave a husband perplexed by busi-
ness cares, and the General urging his complete willingness that
she should go. He purchased her a passage on the best packet sail-
ing, and early in November, with her maid and one child, she
arrived at New York. The parties which welcomed her home, at
Christmas and through the spring months, were marred by an
aloofness and coldness among many of the family, born of an
exacting sense of patriotism or of a morbid interest in her tragic
romance. She was no longer one of them. Crowds would gather
in front of the house on Fourth Street to watch her enter or leave
the door. There were rumors through the country that the British
were plotting a new war of conquest, that their ships were watching
the Eastern ports, and their agents arming the savages for a war
in the west. In 1786, a little furore had been created when Arnold
had crossed the border to visit a friend in Maine. Now there were
tales that he had reviewed the. Canadian militia at Detroit. He
of all Englishmen would most desire the subjugation of the infant
republic. To many, Mrs. Arnold might be a plotter of treason still,
and her English airs and grateful, respectful references to “His
Majesty” did not create a congenial atmosphere.

In April, Margaret left them for the last time, sailing to meet
her husband at St. John, where that vindictive gentleman was busy
with preparations for the libel trial against Munson Hayt. The
outcome of the trial, in September, 1790, was but one indication of
the disfavor by which he was held by his neighbors. Provincial
disfavor, it appeared, was more robust and unqualified in its ex-

276 BENEDICT ARNOLD

pressions than the snubbings that England had offered. Even
Thomas Paine, his old enemy of the Deane controversy at Phila-
delphia, sympathized now with the traitor, who, he insisted, had
been driven by ill-treatment to his fall. Paine knew what it meant
to be an outcast in this age of easily outraged convictions. The
property at St. John was sold, late in 1791, and the family sailed to
make its home again in England.

“I have taken the liberty to send you a small parcel,” the in-
veterate warrior wrote back from London to Ward Chipman,
“containing flannel hose, socks and a pair of gloves, which I beg
you to accept. Should you again be attacked with the gout, you
will find them serviceable; I most sincerely wish it may be the case.
I certainly would not, had I the power to transfer the disease to
some of my good friends at St. John.”

Ag ain a citizen of London, the General was no longer in the
humor to listen in silence to honor wantonly aspersed. It had been
by the advice of his friends, as he confessed, that he had at first
ignored detraction. Since then, he had defended himself, once in
print, and once in a court of law. The cartoonists still linked him
to whomsoever they might wish to defame. Squib and lampoon
still echoed the old, contemptuous distrust.

“Our troops by Arnold thoroughly were bang’d,

And poor St. Andre was by Arnold hang’d;

To George a rebel, to the Congress traitor,

Pray what can make the name of Arnold greater?

By one bold treason more to gain his ends,

Let him betray his new adopted friends.”

Ill health had not improved the General’s temper. He was rather
a stout figure now, a short figure, limping from the old wound,
gouty andi testy, but as erect and broad shouldered as ever, but
with bright, clear eyes in the lined face. He welcomed now the
opportunity to defend his reputation upon the field of honor.

On the thirty-first of May, 1792, there occurred in the House of

THE PROUD WARRIOR

277

Lords an acrimonious debate, which, a circumstance of no remark
in itself, furnished the opportunity for the reestablishment of
wounded honor. The King’s proclamation against seditious meet-
ings was before the House, and James Maitland, Earl of Lauder-
dale, having offered the only opposition to a vote of thanks to His
Majesty, proceeded to the defense of his opinions in a heated
discussion. The Earl’s long face, with its heavy features, the thick
curly hair, and the whiskers on his cheeks failing utterly to conceal
a pair of large ears, with its strong chin and big mouth and large,
deep-set eyes, showed a whimsical kindliness when not hardened
by the expression of strong convictions. He was a shrewd, eccentric
man of thirty-three years, with a fluent tongue, a furious temper
;nd a broad Scotch accent. In the course of the debate his Lordship,
with unpolished irony, declared his pleasure at the military pro-
motion of the noble Duke of Richmond, for, he reasoned, if
apostasy could deserve advancement he was the fittest man for the
post, “General Arnold alone excepted.”

When the report of the debate appeared, the Duke of Richmond
publicly declared that were a satisfactory apology not forthcoming,
only a hostile meeting could satisfy his wounded self-esteem. An
explanation sufficed. The Earl declared that he had intended no
reference whatever to his Grace’s private character, that his criti-
cism was wholly of a political nature. That the injury to the noble
Duke had resulted in a challenge rendered it impossible for General
Arnold to avoid the same recourse with honor. It was, moreover,
an opportunity for him to manifest to the nation, in a most con-
spicuous manner, his consciousness of the justice of his intentions.
His Lordship was temporarily out of town, and the days passed
somberly for the General, and in trembling anxiety for his lady.

Lord Hawke (“who is the most respectable peer and our par-
ticular friend,” as Peggy afterwards assured the family in America)
volunteered his services, and carried to the Earl General Arnold’s
message offering the alternative of an apology or a meeting. The
Earl had intended no reflection on the private character of General

278 BENEDICT ARNOLD

Arnold in his rhetorical references to the depths of apostasy, but
such an explanation was not here acceptable. An apology was
refused. The rencontre was arranged to take place on the following
Sunday, the first day of July, at seven in the morning.

The respectable peer, Lord Hawke, had taken part in the oppo-
sition to the Earl of Lauderdale in the debate over the King’s proc-
lamation, and his prominence in the business gave a certain political
character to the encounter. General Arnold, as it might be argued,
was moreover upholding the dignity of His Majesty. He was cer-
tainly on the popular side in the mere fact of his calling to account
one of those troublesome Scotch interlopers who, greatly to the
vexation of all good Englishmen, were taking a very serious interest
in the government of the Isles.

Among the few who had a previous knowledge of the impend-
ing engagement was Margaret Arnold. Even before the challenge
had been sent, the papers had announced the death of Arnold at
the hand of Lord Lauderdale. But for this poor woman, with the
“violent attack in my head” an ever-present possibility to wreck
her peace, deprive her of memory and reason and perhaps, as it
seemed, of life itself, for her was reserved to know all the facts of
the offer of combat, its acceptance and the meeting. As eager as she
was fearful to learn, she discovered the details. All that Arnold
would tell or promise her was that he would do nothing rashly.
“But I call all my fortitude to my aid,” she confided 1 to her father,
“to prevent my sinking under it, which would unman him and
prevent him acting himself. I am perfectly silent on the subject;
for a weak Woman as I am, I would not wish to prevent what
would be deemed necessary to preserve his honor.” Peggy had
learned to be a soldier’s wife.

She was feigning sleep on a Sunday morning, when her hus-
band rose quietly from the bed, dressed, and limped from the room,
with his case of pistols under his arm. For her there was nothing
but to wait, to listen to the ticking of the clock, and answer in agony
the questions of the servants and the children. The men were meet-

THE PROUD WARRIOR 279

mg at Kilburn Wells, a short distance out of London. They were
on the field, face to face, at eight, watched by Lord Hawke and
a surgeon, Charles James Fox, second for the Earl, and a surgeon,
the faces hardened by a stern intensity.

Fox was to give the signal for fire. Lauderdale’s pistol was
empty. He had no intention of discharging it upon an antagonist
for whom he had no personal enmity. Arnold, a dark figure before
him, ominously rigid, had bitterness enough, and wrongs enough
to avenge, and this was his first chance to avenge them in blood.
But, as he must have known, to have killed his adversary would
have consequences far worse than to have ignored the insult. A
wound, and preferably a slight one, was needed. The word was
given and Arnold’s pistol rang out.

The smoke drifted and vanished in the fresh morning air.
Arnold was glaring at the Earl’s weapon, pointing in scornful
silence at his body. Hawke, supposing it had missed fire, cried out
to him to fire again. Arnold called on him sternly to fire. The Earl
declined, explaining that he had no enmity toward General Arnold.
In that case, Hawke suggested, he would have no objection to
saying that he did not mean to injure the General’s character. The
big Scotchman, however, was now complete master of the situation.
He refused to explain what he had said, and General Arnold might
fire again if he chose. Arnold and Hawke protested that this was
impossible. He must fire or he must apologize. He replied that he
could not retract what he had spoken, but he was sorry if any man
had been hurt by it.

“That is not a proper apology, such as I would make myself in
a similar situation,” and Arnold again demanded that he fire.

A brief conference followed, after which the Earl stepped for-
ward and said, “I have no enmity against General Arnold. I did
not mean to asperse his character or wound his feelings, and am
sorry that General Arnold or any other person should be hurt at
what I have said.”

“Lord Lauderdale,” the General replied, “I am perfectly satisfied

280 BENEDICT ARNOLD

with your apology, provided that our seconds, as men of honor, will
say that I ought to be.”

The two seconds glanced at one another and agreed, heartily
glad to see the affair ended. Arnold had not secured the retraction
of the reference to apostasy, he had far from humbled the enemy.
But the sense of victory was there, to ease the weariness that comes
of pride’s long conflict with contempt. As the gentlemen were leav-
ing the field, a servant arrived with the message that Mrs. Arnold
was terribly ill from anxiety for the General. At this the Earl
expressed his concern and regret, and begged that he might be
permitted to wait upon Mrs. Arnold with his apologies for having
been the cause of her apprehension. The General, however, feared
that she would be unable to receive a visitor.

With her maids struggling to force the glad news of triumph
into her frightened mind, her white face staring from a window
in the house at Gloucester Place, she was watching, perhaps, as the
old soldier marched up the steps and through the door.

IV. The Last Call to Arms.

The General issued a bald and uncolored statement of the affair
at Kilburn Wells, that the public might know precisely and in what
manner honor had been upheld. Peggy was happy and proud. “I
was confined to my bed for some days after,” she told her father
on the sixth, “but I am now so much better that I shall go out for
an airing this afternoon. It has been highly gratifying to find the
General’s conduct so much applauded, which it has been univer-
sally, and particularly by a number of the first characters in the
Kingdom, who have called upon him in consequence of it. Nor am
I displeased with the great commendations bestowed on my own
conduct on this trying occasion.”

“Your father,” she assured Richard, “has gained very great credit
in this business, and I fancy it will deter others from taking liberties
with him.” In the long run, however, the duel accomplished noth-

28 i

THE PROUD WARRIOR

ing whatsoever for injured honor. To dislike General Arnold was
a part of one’s ethics, and dislike was the mother of calumnies.
It was reported in America, where one nobleman suited the purpose
as well as another, that Arnold had been insulted at a Royal
audience by the Earl of Balcarres, whom he had challenged.

“Why don’t you fire, my Lord ?” the traitor cries after discharg-
ing his own weapon.

“Sir,” says the Earl, turning on his heel, “I leave you to the
hangman.”

The story eventually returned to England, where it served in
good repute the moral embellishment of conversation.

On the first of February, 1793, the French Revolutionists de-
clared war: war, again, and throughout England, the excitement
and bustle of armed preparation. Ben was on the active list and
would see service, but his father had no evidence on which to base
a hope for the nation’s reliance. Argument, by pen or sword, could
not remove that cold distrust, and his pride would not allow him
to invite a new rebuff. Privateering, however, was a likely and a
patriotic investment, for which he had the taste and experience,
and he put some of his capital into this risky business. But the
forced inactivity of life in England was hard to bear, and he bought
and fitted out a vessel for the West Indies. There were always
trade possibilities in the sugar islands, and now they were to be,
as they had so often been before, the prizes in a struggle for
dominion. The French Republic would probably fail to hold these
remote possessions and there would follow valuable captures and
valuable trade opportunities. There would be confiscations and
cheap buying from the government. There was certain to be up-
heaval and adventure, and the chance for an opening. Again the
fire-eater sought the distant fields of conquest. His ship was on
the Channel, and as the tides of war were varied in that, quarter,
he sailed himself by packet from an Atlantic port, in which good
fortune was mingled with bad, for his vessel fell a prey to the
enemy before she was in the open sea. He was bound' for the

282

BENEDICT ARNOLD

Leeward Islands that form the arched western border of the Carib-
bean Sea, from Porto Rico to Trinidad, and his immediate destina-
tion was the English island of St. Christopher — St. Kitts, they called
it then— where Mt. Misery and its brood of wooded summits looked
down around them on a rim of fertile pasture land and broad
stretches of sugar cane.

He found the prospect favorable for business. He accepted an
opportunity to take part in provisioning His Majesty’s forces, which,
in addition, were broadening the fields of trade. A small flotilla of
frigates and lesser ships of war was cruising in the Leeward Islands,
landing forces to attack the French garrisons, capturing first Mar-
tinique, and sailing thence for Guadeloupe. This little fleet was
under the command of a seaman, who, if the song which the sailors
sang of him can be relied upon for evidence, was an officer of
distinctly superior talents.

“You’ve heard, I s’pose, the people talk.

Of Benbow and Boscawen,

Of Anson, Pocock, Vernon, Hawke,

And many more then going:

All pretty lads and brave and rum
That seed much noble service;

But Lord, their merit’s all a hum
Compared to Admiral Jervis.”

The land forces with whom he was cooperating were under the
command of a lean old soldier, a bald and long-faced, pompous
English general, Charles, Earl Grey. Grey had distinguished him-
self in the American war in his bayonet surprise of Wayne’s rear
guard at Paoli, where, for his precaution against any random shots
betraying his approach, he had won the title of “no-flint Grey.”
Brigadier-General Francis, and Major-General Thomas Dundas,
formerly Colonels in Virginia, were with the force, and Colonel
Simcoe, of the Queen’s Rangers, was now Lieutenant-General and
Commandant at San Domingo, not far away. Clearing the long

THE PROUD WARRIOR 283

swells of brilliant sea, the fleet came down on the French islands
of Guadeloupe, a line of smooth black hulls, each with its broad
white stripe broken regularly by the square ports from which her
cannon, tompion out, were scowling in readiness for battle, and
over each a cloud of straining canvas, and above it, her flag, a flash
of fiery color, the red cross of St. George of England. Down they
come upon their prey, the green island with its cloudi-crowned
mountains, their copper sheathing flashing above the line of foam
as they bend to the tack, the gunners at their posts, a gleam of
lantern or match through the dark ports, the men crowded at
quarters on the decks, with musket and cutlass, the officers on the
quarterdecks with their cocked hats and sparkling epaulettes.

On the twelfth of April, Fleur d’Epee was stormed with pike
and cutlass by Dundas’ light infantry, and carried. Pointe-a-Pitre
and Fort St. Louis fell, and, yielding to the tide of conquest, the
remaining garrisons accepted honorable terms. Jervis and Grey re-
turned to St. Christopher, leaving Dundas in command of the new
possession. With the news of victory, Arnold set out for Guadeloupe
to find what fortune might offer him. He carried with him some
five thousand pounds in cash, largely the fruit of his work for His
Majesty’s commissary.

Fortune, however, held for him an event very different from
a bargain in sugar or provisions. Hardly had the English ships
departed than a French squadron came upon the scene at Guade-
loupe, cruising its waters, landing the ranks of shaggy republicans,
with their red cockades and tumultuous enthusiasm, capturing post
after post, till only a handful of English were holding desperately
to a narrow foothold. Hugues, with his French and his equally
ferocious battalion of freed slaves, was attacked in vain by the
French royalists and the English. The war subsided into skirmish-
ing, reconquest hopeless unless the British could be well reinforced.
In the meantime, General Arnold had sailed into Pointe-a-Pitre, to
find himself in a French town, faced by the prospect of a French
prison or, perhaps, guillotine. Instantly, he became Mr. John

284 BENEDICT ARNOLD

Anderson, an American citizen. One must perforce wonder at the
choice of pseudonym. The five thousand pounds multiplied as many
times the danger of his position. With recognition or search an
ever-present peril, he secluded himself and waited.

On the fifth of June, news of the victories of Hugues reached
St. Christopher, and back to Guadeloupe came the fleet of Sir John
Jervis and Sir Charles Grey, anchoring off the harbor of Pointe-a-
Pitre. One dark night not long thereafter, a little raft was paddled
to the side of the frigate Boyne, Jervis’ flagship, and, in answer to
the hail of the watch, General Arnold announced himself, ordered
the men to be extremely careful in helping his baggage aboard, and
climbed up with it to the deck. And Peggy, who had heard, of
course, that he had been made prisoner, was soon relieved by the
joyful tidings of his escape. The island, which had been a bone of
contention between French and English for over a century, could
not now be regained for Britain, and Sir John and Sir Charles con-
fined their efforts to withdrawing the imperiled garrisons on the
shore. They gave Arnold a part, and learned the value of his swift
audacity in covering the retreat of some of the forces.

It was not until December, however, that Guadeloupe had been
completely abandoned by its English invaders, and General Arnold
did not wait to see the end. He was on his own again, cruising the
islands in search of trade, St. Christopher, and the Isle of Pines,
and Martinique, and southward to Grenada. In October, a clerk
robbed him of a heavy sum. “I am extremely distressed,” Margaret
wrote sadly to Canada, “that your father is likely to be so ill-
rewarded for all the risks he has run . . . there seems to be a cruel
fatality attending all his exertions.”

If business was disappointing, the General, for all his fifty-three
years and persistent high living, was enjoying an. unprecedented
freedom from gout, “untouched by the yellow fever, of which many
were dying,” and taking a great deal of pleasure in his adventures.
At one place, it is related, he was actually arrested by the French
as a suspicious character and placed for security on bosird a prison

THE PROUD WARRIOR 285

ship. Outwardly, of course, he was again the outraged American
citizen, but he learned from a sentry that the story was not allowed
a worthy credence and that he was suspected of being a British
officer. Perhaps because of the lightening gray in his dark hair and
his tendency to stoutness they did not guard him strictly. At all
events, he found a few planks to serve as a float, slipped into the
water one night, and made his escape to a British cruiser.

Through January and February, 1795, he was at Martinique,
governed then by General Prescott, of Rhode Island fame, at the
Town of St. Pierre, a flourishing little city, the foremost trading
port of Antilles, the jungle-clad mountains smoldering ominously
in the distance. Thither, from the fertile plantations behind, came
sugar and cotton, ginger, indigo, chocolate and coffee, a wealth of
merchandise for the dark hulls rolling in the harbor. But Arnold
was again building up his capital by supplying the royal commis-
sary, bringing a large part of his beef and other provisions, by
obscure channels, from the United States.

Peggy, managing the family’s affairs in London, heard from him
at every opportunity. She was most worried now for Ben, who was
with the forces in Jamaica, but from whom there had been no
word for some time. Two letters to Ward Chipman at St. John,
revealed 1 the changes that time had wrought in the General and
his lady. In one, Benedict Arnold speaks fondly of peace, and in the
second, Peggy Shippen is writing sagely and pleasantly of business
and politics.

“Martinique, 14th Jan’y, 1795.

“Dear Sir:

“A few days ago I had the pleasure of receiving letters from Jonathan Bliss
and Ebenezer Putnam, who informed me my friends are all well, among
whom I rank you and Mr. Parker. You will all, no doubt, be glad to hear that,
after the variety of scenes I have passed through in this country, and some
of them very hazardous, I not only escaped, but I am in the enjoyment of
good health.

“You seem placed in a corner of the world where you are free from the
alarms and misfortunes of war, which is a great blessing. I expect to embark

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BENEDICT ARNOLD

for England in April, considerably improved in fortune and infinitely more
in health than when I left England; and though I have experienced the distress
of burying two-thirds of my acquaintances in these Islands since I came out,
I scarcely had an hour’s sickness.

“I hope you have been fortunate to collect the few debts of mine left with
you, and remitted to Mrs. Arnold.

“Sincerely yours,

“B. Arnold.”

“London, Queen Ann’s Street, East,
“4th June, 1795.

“Sir:

“Mr. Robbins having sailed sometime ago for America, I take the liberty
of enclosing you the protest. The bill shall go through the regular form, and
be returned to you to take proceedings. General Arnold is not yet returned to
England, but I expect to see him in the course of a month. You have no doubt
heard of the many wonderful escapes he has had, some of which could only
have been effected by his uncommon exertions.

“With respect to politics, I am a miserable croaker, and ought not, perhaps,
to touch them.

“The desertion of our allies places dear old England, in my opinion, in a
very critical situation; and the late unpopular measure of bringing the Prince
of Wales’ debts before Parliament, added to the heavy taxes that must unavoid-
ably be paid for the prosecution of the war, creates a great uneasiness at home.
But at present, we certainly could not make peace upon honorable terms.

“I hear much of the gaiety of your little city, but find party spirit, especially
among the ladies, still rages with violence. I shall always regret my separation
from many valuable friends, among the first of whom I shall always reckon
Mrs. Chipman. Please have the goodness to make my best compliments to her,
and believe me, with much esteem,

“Yours, etc.,

“M. Arnold.”

Arnold met with another heavy loss before his departure for
England, and was busy for a while collecting every available debt.
But when he at last set sail from St. Pierre, later than the longing
Margaret had expected, it was a hope for the rebirth of fame and
honor. He had seen active service again. He had obtained from the
Standing Committee of West India Planters and Merchants a reso-

THE PROUD WARRIOR 287

lution expressing their high appreciation of his work in provision-
ing the forces and in his assistance to Sir Charles Grey at the
abandonment of Guadeloupe. Sir Henry Clinton had already been
requested to make clear the honorable character of the West Point
conspiracy and had acquiesced with courteous formality if without
enthusiasm. Clinton was still haunted by the tragic outcome of the
plot and could not regard Arnold as a friend. But now, with new
proof of his loyalty and zeal, they might throw prejudice aside, and
use him in some desperate venture.

Not long after his return to England, an agent of the govern-
ment brought to his house the sword of a young British officer.
One can see him take it in his hands, a rocklike firmness in the
mouth and the deepening lines of his face, gazing upon it as if to
count the scratches on the black leather of the scabbard and the
brass and silver of the hilt. In October, 1795, at Iron Shore, in the
Island of Jamaica, Ben had died of a wound in the leg. He had
doggedly refused to allow the surgeons to amputate, as his father
had done at Saratoga. The old General, despised beyond the assist-
ance of his friends, outranked now by so many of his old subordi-
nates of the American war, had proved his loyalty in the field and
with the life of his eldest born. Give him now a few ships, a few
men, a free rein, and he could turn the balance in the islands, and
he knew it.

In October, 1796, Spain declared war, and by December, General
Arnold had formed a plan by which to profit from this new enemy.
A few ships of the line must be spared from home waters until the
heavy naval armament of France and Spain in the southern seas
could be overcome. As for the land forces, he could raise an army
of his own around a nucleus of trained soldiers, as he had done in
the American service and had hoped to do again under Sir Henry
Clinton.

“I will pledge myself, with such a covering fleet as I have men-
tioned, and five thousand effective men, to begin operations; I
will raise so formidable an army of natives, creoles, and people of

288

BENEDICT ARNOLD

colour, that no force that Spain has there, or can send to that coun-
try, will be able to resist or prevent their freeing the country from
the Spanish government.”

Cornwallis brought the project to the attention of the Ministry,
who considered and rejected it through an unwillingness to detach
forces from the closer fields of action, where General Buonaparte
was shifting the balance of power to France, and where the struggle
must be decided, and because of the old 1 distrust of the traitor.
Should the reckless daring of the American bring defeat, a danger-
ous reaction against the government would follow.

From the first of June, in ’ninety-seven, the impatient fire-eater
begged again for a command. Austria had been humbled by the
French armies, and England’s navy torn by mutinies. “Having had
some experience in conducting naval, as well as Military Opera-
tions,” he announced briefly to Earl Spencer, First Lord of the
Admiralty, “I think it my duty at this alarming Crisis, to tender
my Services to your Lordship, to be employed as you may think
proper. Whether they are employed or not, I presume my zeal for
his Majesty’s service will apologize for the liberty I take in address-
ing your Lordship.”

A year later, in April, with the wave of French conquest over-
flowing into Egypt he offered himself, for the last time, a laconic
plea to Frederick Augustus, Duke of York, then displaying a con-
spicuous lack of military talent at the head of the British armies,
and, for the last time, was apprised that his services could not be
accepted. And in that year, the only recognition of his services in
the Caribbean, the King granted to General Arnold a tract of thir-
teen thousand acres in the barren wilderness of northern Canada.
The requirement of residence was generously dispensed with. In
June Margaret’s last child was born, William Fitch Arnold, chris-
tened in honor of a friend of the family.

Thenceforward, as far as the public was concerned, General
Arnold could be nothing but an object for curiosity, distinguished
by a limp, and his large clear eyes, by a handsome wife and still

THE PROUD WARRIOR

289

more handsome children. He was seen once in Westminster Abbey,
with Margaret, reading the inscription on the monument that had
been erected to Andre, displaying, the observer noted, a distinct lack
of emotion. He divided his time, as usual, between London and the
country. The family had still its pensions, but business was bad.
Gouty and ageing, the General’s speculative impulse had not left
him. Privateers were fitted out at great expense, and, while they
brought in prizes from time to time, the litigation attending their
condemnation proved costly, and the profit was small. Arnold,
moreover, was as ever unable to find a trustworthy subordinate, and
his captains cheated him outrageously. Gloomy and sour, the old
warrior never relinquished the hope of bringing in a fortune from
the high seas. Margaret, with her father’s deliberate conservatism,
distrusted the business: “the vile privateers ” she called them, but
not to her husband.

For her, unable to bear the snubs and morbid curiosity with her
husband’s stolid disregard for her, with her love of good things and
good society, the struggle was harder. On their uncertain income,
she must keep up with the best people of their acquaintance and
rear the children according to their station. Lord Cornwallis was
seeing that the boys were well placed in their military education
and in the army. But anxiety and the strain of constant effort
brought back repeatedly that nervous collapse, which seemed to
bring death suddenly very near, and which the doctors were treating
according to a theory that the cause lay in an excessive quantity of
blood in the head.

Richard and Henry were struggling to wring a living from the
soil of upper Canada. One by one, her own sons sailed away to the
outposts of the empire. There was no thought of any other calling
than the army. Even little Sophia Matilda was to become, at a post
in Bengal, a soldier’s wife. Tenderly, placidly watchful over the
two young men in Canada, Margaret’s pride and comfort was in
her own five children and what she was making them. And despite
the distances between them, the family remained bound together

290 BENEDICT ARNOLD

in closest intimacy by an unselfish, an ingenuous and unconcealed
affection.

Most difficult of all for her to understand and care for was
that dark, determined gentleman, her General. “He is at present,”
she wrote, “in the most harassed wretched state that I have ever
seen him.” Gout and a disease of the lungs were tearing away his
strength, but the physicians, sagely uncertain, did not disturb her
with fears. Oppressed by cares and the anxious waiting that attended
his ventures on the sea, he could sleep but little. His fortune would
amount to nothing if the debts were paid.

In February, 1801, one of their privateers, the Ferret, brought in
a Spanish vessel, said to be worth twenty thousand pounds. There
followed a brief rest and exultation, until the new triumph had
dwindled into the realization of a new failure. In the spring they
moved again to the country. In June the General could not leave
his bed, laboring for breath, his legs stretched stiffly before him
in swollen agony, and Margaret, who had herself but three more
years of life, realized that he was dying. For a while he assured
her that he would soon be up again, out on his horse for some more
long rides through the country. But hope subsided into careworn
complaints, the fear that the family would be left without provision,
that Hannah would lose her little pension, until there were only
delirious mutterings to keep up the fight, to answer for the uncon-
quered soul, until, at last, the tired voice had faded into silence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bibliographies have two apologies to offer: they can show on what
foundation a study is based, and they can suggest broader or more de-
tailed views of the subject. In consideration of both of these objects, this
list is composed of the principal books on which the work has been built,
but with the inclusion of a few, such as Moore’s Diary , Simm’s Trappers
of New Yor\, and Elijah Fisher’s delightful Journal , which have but
scant reference to Arnold and yet deserve some favoritism because of
their colorful pictures of scenes and people of his time. Many works of
minor or of indirect importance in discovering the clues and penetrating
the mysteries of the traitor’s career have been necessarily omitted, and
only the most important items in periodical literature are given.

Of fundamental interest, of course, are the manuscript sources, the
Shippen papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Gates papers
at the New York Historical Society, the Schuyler papers at the New
York Public Library, the Pickering and Knox papers at the Massachu-
setts Historical Society, the military correspondence at the Library of
Congress, and the wealth of varied material at these and other hospitable
institutions. The Sir Henry Clinton papers at the William L. Clements
Library, University of Michigan, containing the treason correspondence,
are not yet fully prepared for public perusal. Among the published col-
lections of manuscripts are Peter Force’s American Archives ', B. F.
Stevens’ Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives, the Deane
Papers, among the publications of the New York Historical Society, and
the Writings of George Washington and Journals of the Continental
Congress, both edited by W. C. Ford.

The best collection of maps is in E. M. Avery’s History of the United
States and its People, Cleveland, 1904, volumes five and six. Most of
these are included in the single-volume history by General F. V. Greene,
The Revolutionary War and the Military Policy of the United States,
New York, 1911.

291

292

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Biographies of Arnold.

Arnold, Isaac N., Benedict Arnold . Chicago, 1880. The sympathetic viewpoint of a
descendant.

Bradford, Gamaliel, Damaged Souls. Boston, 1923.

Hill, George Canning, Benedict Arnold. Boston, 1858.

Sparks, Jared, Benedict Arnold. Boston, 1835.

Todd, Charles Burr, The Real Benedict Arnold . N. Y., 1903.

General Surveys of the Revolution .

Abbott, Wilbur C., New York in the American Revolution. N. Y., 1929.

Adams, James Truslow, Revolutionary New England. Boston, 1923.

Allen, Gardner W., A Naval History of the American Revolution. 2 v. Boston, 1912.
Botta, Charles, A History of the War of the Independence of the United States. New
Haven, 1837.

Carrington, Henry B., Battles of the American Revolution. N. Y., 1876.

Corwin, Edward S., French Policy and the American Alliance . Princeton, 1916.

Fisher, Sydney George, The Struggle for American Independence. 2 v. Phila., 1908.
Gordon, William, The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment of the Independence
of the United States of America. 4 v. London, 1788.

Lossing, Benson J., The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution. 2 v. N. Y., 1859.

Lowell, Edward J., The Hessians, and the other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in
the Revolutionary War. N. Y., 1884.

Sabine, Lorenzo, The American Loyalists. Boston, 1847.

Siebert, William H., The Loyalists of Pennsylvania. Columbus, 1920.

Smith, Justin H., Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony. 2 v. N. Y., 1907. The most
authoritative work on the projects for the conquest of Canada.

Stokes, I. N. P., The Iconography of Manhattan Island. 6 v. N. Y., 1915-28.

Upton, General Emory, The Military Policy of the United States. Wash., 1907.

Van Tyne, Clyde H. The Loyalists in the American Revolution. N. Y., 1902.

T he Revolutionary Soldier .

Bolton, Charles Knowles, The Private Soldier under Washington. N. Y., 1902.

Curtis, Edward E., Organization of the British Army in the American Revolution. New
Haven, 1926.

Dillin, Captain John G. W., The Kentucky Rifle. Wash., 1924.

Hatch, Louis Clinton, The Administration of the American Revolutionary Army. N. Y.,
1904.

Heitman, F. B., Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army. Wash., 1893.
Hillard, Rev. E. B., The Last Men of the Revolution. Hartford, 1864.

Lefferts, Lieutenant Charles M., Uniforms of the American, British, French, and German
Armies in the War of the American Revolution. N. Y., 1926
Sawyer, Charles Winthrop, Firearms in American History . Boston, 1910.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

293

Particular Events of the Revolution.

Proceedings of the General Court Martial , held at Raritan , New Jersey ... for the Trial
of Major-General Arnold . Phila., 1780.

Proceedings of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania in the Case of Major-
General Arnold . Phila., 1779.

Abbatt, William, The Crisis of the Revolution, being the Story of Arnold and Andre.
N. Y., 1899. Well Illustrated.

Arnold, Benedict, Present State of the American Rebel Army , Navy and Finances, trans-
mitted to the British Government : October, 1780. Brooklyn, 1891.

Arnold, Benedict. Regimental Memorandum Book.' Ticonderoga and Crown Point . Phila.,
1884.

Anburey, Lieutenant Thomas, Travels through the Interior Parts of America, 1776-1781 .
Boston, 1923.

Burnham, Rev. N. H., The Battle of Croton Heights . New London, 1899.

Barbe-Marbois, Frangois, Marquis de, Complot d’ Arnold et de Sir Henry Clinton. Paris,
1816.

Boyneton, Edward C., History of West Point. N. Y., 1863.

Codman, John, Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec. N. Y., 1902.

Coffin, Victor, The Province of Quebec and the Early American Revolution. Madison, 1896.
Dawson, Henry B, ed.. Record of the Trial of Joshua Hett Smith, Morrisiana, N. Y., 1866.
Digby, Lieutenant William, The Campaigns of Carleton and Burgoyne from Canada :
1776-7. Albany, 1887.

Eckenrode, H. J., The Revolution in Virginia. Boston, 1916.

Henry, John Joseph, An Accurate and Interesting Account of the Hardships and Sufferings
of that Band of Heroes who Traversed the Wilderness in the Campaign Against
Quebec in 1775. Lancaster, 1812.

Hough, F. B., The Northern Invasion of October, 1780. N. Y., 1866.

Jones, Thomas, History of New York during the Revolutionary War. 2 v. N. Y., 1879.

Summarizes with vindictive thoroughness the charges against General Robertson.
Jones, Charles Henry, History of the Campaign for the Conquest of Canada in 1776.
Phila., 1882.

Lassiter, F. R., Arnold’s Invasion of Virginia. Sewanee Review, Vol. 9.

Mahan, Captain A. T., The Naval Campaign of 1776 on Lake Champlain . Scribners
Magazine, Vol. 23.

Nickerson, Hoffman, The Turning Point of the Revolution , or Burgoyne in America.
Boston, 1928.

Palmer, Peter S., History of Lake Champlain. Albany, 1866.

Peters, Samuel, General History of Connecticut, S. J. M’Cormick, ed. N. Y., 1877.
Simms, Jeptha R., Trappers of New York • Albany, 1850.

Smith, J. E. A., History of Pittsfield ( Berkshire County ) , Mass . 2 v. Boston, 1869. Dwells
on the sad history of Major John Brown.

Smith, Joshua Hett, An Authentic Narrative of the Causes which led to the Death of
Major Andri. London, 1808.

Smith, Justin H., Arnold’s March from Cambridge to Quebec. This more scholarly work
beside Codman’s readable description of the same subject, forms an interesting con-
trast in styles of historical writing.

Wcstcott, Thompson, Historic Mansions and Buildings of Philadelphia. Phila., 1877.

294

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Miscellanies,

Bartram, F. S., Retro graphs. N. Y., 1888.

Bloodgood, S. D., Sexagenary , or Reminiscences of the American Revolution . Albany, 1866.
Ford, P. L., Stray Leaves from a Traitor's Life. Cosmopolitan Magazine , Vol. 28.

Hinman, R. R., ed. } A Historical Collection ... of the Part Sustained by Connecticut in
the War of the Revolution. Hartford, 1842.

Moore, Frank, The Diary of the American Revolution . Hartford, 1875. Composed chiefly of
extracts from newspapers.

Watson, John F., Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. Phila., 1891.

Memoir . (Listed by Subject,)

Adams, Samuel, The Life and Public Services of. By William F. Wells. 3 v. Boston, 1865.
Allen, Colonel Ethan, Allen's Captivity. Boston, 1845.

Allen, Ethan. By John Pell. Boston, 1929.

Andre, Major John, The Life and Career of. By Winthrop Sargent. N. Y., 1902.

Brant, Joseph, The Life of. By William L. Stone. 2 v. N. Y., 1838.

Boudinot, Elias, The Life of. J. J. Boudinot, ed. 2 v. Boston, 1896.

Fisher, Elijah, Journal While in the War for Independence. Augusta, 1880.

Greene, Nathanael, The Life of. By G. W. Greene. 3 v. N. Y., 1871.

Graydon, Alexander, Memoirs of his own Time. Phila., 1846.

Lafayette, The Marquis de, in the American Revolution. By Charlemagne Tower, Jr. 2 v.
Phila., 1895.

Lee, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry, Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the
United States. Wash., 1827.

Lamb, General John, Memoirs of the Life and Times of. By Isaac Q. Leake. Albany, 1857.
Meigs, Return Jonathan, Journal. Cinn., 1852.

Morgan, General Daniel, The Life of. By James Graham. N. Y., 1858.

Morison, George, An Interesting Journal . Hagerstown, 1803.

Reed, Joseph, The Life and Correspondence of. By William B. Reed. 2 v. Phila., 1847.
The famous controversy on Reed’s loyalty is sympathetically reviewed by the same
author in his President Reed of Pennsylvania. A Reply to Mr. George Bancroft and
Others. Phila., 1867.

Senter, Isaac, The Journal of. Phila., 1846.

Steuben, Frederick. William von. The Life of. By Friedrich Kapp. N. Y., 1859.

Schuyler, Major-General Philip, The Life and Times of. By Benson J. Lossing. 2 v. N. Y.,

1873*

Schuyler, Philip, Life of. By Bayard Tuckerman. N. Y., 1903.

Shippen, Margaret, Life of. By Lewis Burd Walker. The Pennsylvania Magazine of His-
tory and Biography, vols. 24, 25, 26. A sympathetic review of documents by a
member of the family.

Shippen, Margaret. The Wife of the Traitor. By Gamaliel Bradford. Harpers Magazine ,
vol. 151.

Stirling, William Alexander, Earl of. Life of. By William Alexander Duer. N. Y., 1847.
Thacher, James, A Military Journal during the American Revolutionary War. Boston, 1823.
Wilkinson, James, Memoirs of my own Times. 3 v. Phila., 1816.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

295

England, Canada and the West Indies .

Most of the material for this period is in manuscript, in scattered
references not in the scale of this bibliography, or in the foregoing works.
Only a few remain to be mentioned.

Arnold, Benedict (?) Remarks on the Travels of the Marquis de Chastellux . London, 1787.
Fiske, A. K-, The West Indies. N. Y., 1902.

James, William, Naval History of Great Britain . 6 v. London, 1902.

Lawrence, J. W., Footprints; or. Incidents in the Early History of New Brunswick,. Saint
John, 1883.

Morris, Robert, Morris , Arnold and Battersby. Account of the Attack I made on the
Character of General Arnold. London, 1782. How the assertion that Arnold was a
horse thief led to the field of honor. This extremely rare pamphlet is reviewed in
Sargent’s biography of Andr£.

Willyams, Cooper, An Account of the Campaign in the West Indies in the Year 1794 .
London, 1796.

INDEX

Acland, Maj. John, commands grenadiers,
158; captured, 180.

Active, sloop, captured, 198.

Adams, Samuel, supports Gates, 109; dis-
gusted, 210.

Allen, Enos, 11.

Allen, Col. Ethan, marches on Ticonderoga,
28; defies Arnold, 29; at capture of Ti-
conderoga, 30; feud with Arnold, 32ft;
plans invasion of Canada, 41; before Con-
gress, 42,* captured, 43.

Allen, Lt. Solomon, 241.

Allen, Rev. Thomas, an active Whig, 27.

American Legion, raised, 252; distrusted,
255.

Andre, Maj. John, verse quoted, 182; bor-
rows books, 196; sounds Peggy, 217;
treason correspondence, 228; to meet Ar-
nold, 235; meets Arnold, 23jft; leaves
for New York, 240; capture, 241; hanged,

245.

Arnold, Benedict, legend of duel, 3ff; drug-
gist, 8; to foreign trade, 9; flogs informer,
pff; quarrels over debt, 11; family, 13;
youth, i3f; routs a lover, 14; marriage
and children, i4f; character, I5ff; social
standing, 19; defied by Peters, 20; turns
soldier, 21; marches to Boston, 23; pro-
poses capture of Ticonderoga, 25; be-
comes Colonel, marches on Ticonderoga,
27; claims rank over Ethan Allen, 29;
at capture of Ticonderoga, 13; quarrel
with Ethan Allen, 31; his faction rein-
forced, 33; kicks Col. Easton, 36; plans
invasion of Canada, 38; ejected from
Ticonderoga, 39; proposes invasion of
Canada, 41; distrusted by Congress, 42;
in disgrace, 44; chosen to command in-
vasion, 45; receives instructions, 50; sails
into Kennebec, 51; organizes army, 54;
enters wilderness, 55; builds forts on line
of march, 56; his letters intercepted, 57;
calls a council, 58; dash to save army,
58ff; speech to Indians, 62; arrives be-
fore Quebec, 63; crosses St. Lawrence, 65;
invests Quebec, 66f; falls back, 67; joined

by Montgomery, 69; disaffection in his
corps, 75; advances on Quebec, 78;
wounded, 80; carried to Hospital, 82;
fortifies Hospital, 83; calls for reinforce-
ments, 85; praised, 87; brigadier, 88; re-
organizes siege, 89; reinforced, 91;
“breaks” Easton and Brown, 90; difficul-
ties of siege, 91; crushes an uprising, 92;
leaves Quebec, 94; at Montreal, 94; re-
ceives commissioners, 96; attitude, 98; af-
fair at the Cedars, 99; quarrel with
Hazen, 101; seizes goods at Montreal,
101; challenges judges, 102; confides to
Gates, 103; urges retreat, 105; retreats,
105; friendship with Gates, no; given
command of fleet, no; shipbuilding, in;
quarrel with Wyncoop, ii2ff; sails, 114;
defends his character, 115; posts fleet at
Valcour, 116; 118; attacked by Carleton,
120; his own gunner, 122; orders retreat,
123; repairs ships, 124; burns ships and
retreats, 126; opinions on, 127; attitude
to Congress, 133; ally of Gates, 134; in-
sulted by Brown, i34ff; ordered to Rhode
Island, 137; plans attack, 139; in love,
140; superseded, 142; opposes Tryon,
146; attacks at Compo, 149; honored by
Congress, 15 1; complaint to Congress,
152; defends Philadelphia, 154; ordered
north, 155; resigns, 155; joins Schuyler,
156; volunteers to relieve Lt. Schuyler,
160; deceives Indians, 161; return to
camp, 163; rival of Gates, 165; first bat-
tle of Saratoga, 169!!; ordered off field,
171; threatens Gates, 173; enraged by
Gates, 174; as a fighter, 175; second bat-
tle of Saratoga, I77ff; wounded, 179;
an impatient patient, 181; rank restored,
184; desc. by a soldier, 185; fame, 186;
to Connecticut, 188; in love, 189; goes
to Valley Forge, 192; Governor ot Phila.,
195; enters Phila., 196; in business with
Franks, 197; and case of the Active,
198; unpopular, 199; grows magnani-
mous, 201; woos Miss Shippen, 203; ele-
ments of his unpopularity, 2ioff; charges

INDEX

298

brought against, 212; demands court mar-
tial, 213; court martial, 214; married,
215; on education o£ sons, 216; first pro-
posals of treason, 217; demands instant
trial, 219; at Ft. Wilson, 220; on trial,
22i£; reprimanded, 224; reasons for
treason, 226#; treason correspondence,
228; proposes naval expedition, 229; seeks
West Point command, 230; Canadian
proclamation, 230; at West Point, 234;
prepares for treason, 232; prepares to
meet Andre, 235; afraid, 236; meets
Andre, 237^; flight, 24 iff; writes to
Washington, 244; threatens massacre,
245; effect of treason, 245; arrives at
New York, 249; American Legion, 252;
plot to capture, 253ff; impatience, 256;
in Virginia, 257ff; return to New York,
260; New London raid, 262ff; return
to New York, 263; sails for England,
264; received at court, 265; distrusted,
266; life in London, 267; considers
India, 268; to Canada, 271; in England,
273} sues for libel, 274; return to
England, 276; duel, 277ff; sails for
West Indies, 281; escape, 283; adven-
tures, 284; return, 286; plans expedition,
287; asks for command, 288; privateers,
289; death, 290.

Arnold, Benedict (son), born, 1768, 15; a
scrape, 216; American Legion, 252; death,
287.

Arnold, Edward Shippen, birth, 1780, 228.

Arnold, Georg, butcher, 187.

Arnold, George, born, 1787, 273.

Arnold, Hannah, desc., 9; love affair, 14;
cares for children, 43; ill, 235; after
treason, 246; pensioned, 269.

Arnold, Hannah King, mother of Bene-
dict, 13.

Arnold, Henry, born, 1772, 15; at Phila.,
216; an officer, aged 8, 252; to Canada,
271; narrow escape, 273; farmer, 289.

Arnold, James Robertson, birth, 1781, 261.

Arnold, Margaret Mansfield, marriage and
children, 14; death, 43.

Arnold, Margaret Shippen, courted by
Arnold, 203; married, 215; Edward born,
228; at West Point, 234; writes to New
York, 235; effect of treason, 243; to
Phila., 245; banished, 248; to New York,
255; desc., 256; birth of James, 261; sails
for England, 264; deaths of children, 268;
birth of Sophia, 269; worries, 272; birth
of George, 273; visits Phila., 275; Arnold’s

duel, 278ff; birth of William Fitch, 288;
cares for family, 289.

Arnold, Richard, born, 1769, 15; at Phila.,
216; American Legion, 252; to Canada,
271; farmer, 289.

Arnold, Sophia Matilda, born, 1785, 269;
married, 289.

Arnold, William Fitch, born, 1798, 288.

Balcarres, Lord, second battle of Saratoga,
177; 178.

Barlow, Joel, quoted, 186.

Beaumarchais, Pierre A. C. de, supplies
Americans, 21 1.

Bemis Heights, army entrenched at, 166.

Bigelow, Maj. Timothy, with Arnold, 47;
climbs a mountain, 57.

Bonython, Ruth, legend of, 5 6.

Boole, Peter, flogged, 9ff.

Boston, Arnold critizes, 140.

Broad Bay , schooner, Arnold’s flagship, 51.

Breymann, Col. von, killed, 179.

Brimmer, Martin, rival of Arnold, 19 1.

Broglie, Frederick, Count, and Seane, 21 1.

Brown, Capt. Jacob, at Quebec, 78.

Brown, Col. John, joins Ethan Allen, 28;
career, 32; feud with Arnold, 33; at
Sorcl, 64; makes trouble, 70; disgraced,
78; Arnold’s method with, 90; seeks jus-
tice, 100; insults Arnold, 134!!; raids
Ticonderoga, 172; aids Reed, 212; death,
248.

Burgoyne, Gen. John, reinforces Carleton,
98; his army, 157; confident, 159;
troubles begin, 163; mistress, 168; attacks
Gates, 169; second battle of Saratoga,
I76ff; surrenders, 181; anec., 186.

Burr, Aaron, with Arnold, 49; legend of a
romance, 53; under fire, 74; leaves Que-
bec, 93; opinion of Arnold, 94.

Campbell, Col. Donald, in command at
Quebec, 87.

Canada, Arnold trades with, 9; Arnold plans
invasion, 25; 38; Congress plans invasion,
40; Schuyler commands invasion, 42;
plan for invasion by Kennebec, 44; 49ff;
Arnold marches against, 51; conquest in-
complete, 68; new army for, 88; char-
acter of campaign altered, 92; signifi-
cance of invasion, 98; army leaves, 105;
plan for new invasion, 184; Lafayette
and invasion, 207.

Carleton, schooner, with Carleton’s fleet,
1 17 ; I2lf.

INDEX

299

Carleton, Sir Guy, defense of Canada, 41;
enters Quebec, 67; desc., 71; rejects sum-
mons, 72; captures Arnold’s corps, 85;
sallies from Quebec, 97; wins at Three
Rivers, 104; builds a fleet, 117; attacks
Arnold’s fleet, 120; unpleasant surprise,
124; honored, 128; policy at Ticonderoga,
129; snubbed, 158.

Carroll, Charles, at Montreal, 95ff.

Carroll, John, at Montreal, 95#.

Cedars, action at, 99.

Champe, Serg. John, plot to capture Arnold,
253J6F; deserts, 259.

Charming Nancy, schooner, pass to, 195;
223.

Chase, Samuel, at Montreal, 95#; sounds
Arnold, 98; quoted, 154.

Chastellux, Marquis de, Travels, 273.

Chipman, Ward, befriends Arnold, 271; de-
fends him, 274; letters to, 285.

Cilley, Col. Joseph, first battle of Saratoga,
169.

Clarke, Sir Francis, wounded, 177; death,
180.

Clarkson, Maj. Matthew, aide to Arnold,
193; defends Arnold, 208,* 213; defends
Seane, 21 1.

Clinton, Gov. George, 232.

Clinton, Sir Henry, invades Rhode Island,
138; storms Hudson forts, 17 6; treason
correspondence, 228; moonshine general,
231; receives Arnold, 250; recommends
Arnold, 287.

Colburn, Maj. Reuben, builds bateaux,
52.

Compo, battle, 149.

Congress, Continental, considers invasion of
Canada, 40; distrusts Arnold, 42; con-
siders Arnold and Canada, 88; sends com-
missioners to Canada, 95; Arnold and,
133; promote junior officers over Arnold,
142; honors Arnold, 151; intrigues in,
153; charges against Arnold, 214; plot
to steal journals, 264.

Congress, galley, flagship, 116; in battle,
1 2 iff; last stand, 125.

Constable, William, business with Arnold,
195.

Conway, Cabal, Gates, 108; Lafayette, 183;
denied by leaders, 199; Arnold, 212.

Cornwallis, Charles, Lord, junction with
Arnold, 260; befriends Arnold, 288;
289.

Cramah£, Gov. Hector, hears of Arnold’s
coming, 57; in terror, 64.

Cresswell, Nicholas, quoted, 250.

Croskie, Captain: legend of duel, 38,

Crown Point, captured, 33.

Danbury, raid, 144#.

Deane, Silas, recommends Arnold, 42;
moves Arnold be promoted, 88; opinion
of Wooster, 93; in France, 142; 210;
guest of Arnold, 202; suspected and
accused, 211; in London, 266.

Dearborn, Gen. Henry, with Gates, 164;
first battle of Saratoga, 169; second battle
of Saratoga, 177.

De Blois, Ann Coffin, stern parent, 192.

De Blois, Elizabeth, desc., 140; rejects
Arnold, 141; her charms, 189; proves
cold, i9of; elopement, 192.

De Blois, Gilbert, Tory, 189.

De Lancey, Gen. Oliver, 252.

Delaplace, Capt. William, surrenders Ticon-
deroga, 30.

Downing, Samuel, describes Arnold, 185.

Dundas, Gen. Francis, watches Arnold, 257;
West Indies, 282.

Dundas, Gen. Thomas, 282; 283.

Du Simitiere, Pierre Eugene, scolds Andre,
196; paints Arnold, 202.

Easton, Col. James, joins Ethan Allen, 28;
career, 32; feud with Arnold, 33; kicked,
36; at Sorel, 64; Arnold’s method with,
90; seeks justice, 100.

Elmer, Ebenezer, quoted, 130.

Emerson, Rev. Ezekiel, long sermon, 52.

Enos, Col. Roger, with Arnold, 47; deserts,
58.

Enterprise , sloop, captured, 34; with Ar-
nold’s fleet, 1 1 6; escapes, 125.

Eustis, Dr. William, at West Point, 234;
243.

Ewald, Capt., anec., 259.

Eyre, Col., at Ft. Griswold, 262.

Ferret, privateer, 290.

Fisher, Elijah, gets a job, 191.

Foster, Capt., attacks Arnold, 99.

Fox, Charles James, 279.

Franklin, Benjamin, at Montreal, 95$; de-
parture, 97; disgusted, 201.

Franks, Maj. D. S., aide to Arnold, 188;
in business with Arnold, 197; “the
nurse,” 217; at West Point, 240.

Fraser, Capt. Malcolm, 77.

300

INDEX

Fraser, Gen. Simon, 158; attacks at Sara-
toga, 169; for retreat, 176; death, 180.

Freeman’s Farm, 167; action at, 169#.

Gage, Gen. Thomas, orders Concord raid,
22.

Gansevoort, Col. Peter, at Ft. Schuyler,
159#.

Gates, Gen. Horatio, supports Arnold, 103;
rival of Washington, 108; of Schuyler,
109; gives fleet to Arnold, no; instruc-
tions to Arnold, 118; attitude to Arnold,
134; shields Arnold, 136; joins Washing-
ton, 137; claims victory of Valcour, 138;
intrigues in Congress, 153; supersedes
Schuyler, 163; character, 164; rival of
Arnold, 165, 167; orders Arnold off field,
171; threatened by Arnold, 173; enrages
Arnold, 174; second battle of Saratoga,
i76ff; surrender of Burgoyne, 181; an
idol, 183; defeated, 233.

Germaine, Lord George, a bungler, 158.

Governor’s Guards, formed, 21; march to
Boston, 24; return, 27.

Greene, Gen. Nathanael, 44; threatens res-
ignation, 144.

Green Mountain Boys, march on Ticon-
deroga, 28; Arnold claims command, 29;
taste for booty, 315 authorized by Con-
gress, 42.

Grey, Gen. Charles, West Indies, 282; 284.

Griswold, Fort, capture, 263.

Guadaloupe, expedition, 282ff.

Hamilton, Col. Alexander, at West Point,
242.

Hannah, ship, 262.

Hawke, Martin Bladin, Lord, second for
Arnold, 277.

Hayt, Munson, Arnold’s partner, 271; quar-
rel, 274.

Hazen, Col. Moses, quarrel with Arnold,
101; court martial of, 102; exonerated,
137; at West Point, 231.

Hendricks, Capt. William, desc., 49.

Henry, John Joseph, quoted, 49; aided by
Arnold, 60.

Herkimer, Gen. Nicholas, at Oriskany, 159;
death, 160.

Herrick, Capt., at Ticonderoga, 38; 40.

Hinman, Col. Benjamin, given command of
Ticonderoga, 38,

Hon Yost, serves Arnold in ruse, 1615
career, 163.

Hortalez and Co., formed, 21 1.

Howard, James, barbecue, 53.

Howe, Gen. Robert, 221.

Howe, Sir William, plans, 138; ignores
Burgoyne, 158; mistress, 168; ridiculed,
183.

Hugues, Victor, at Guadaloupe, 283.

Inflexible, ship, with Carleton’s fleet, 117; 125.

Jacatagua, legend of, 53.

Jameson, Col. John, 241.

Jefferson, Gov. Thomas, reward for Arnold,
258.

Jervis, Sir John, in West Indies, 282.

Jordan, Jesse, wagon master, 208; death, 209.

Knox, Gen. Henry, scolds Lucy, 200;
friendly to Arnold, 220; at court mar-
tial, 221.

Knox, Mrs. Lucy, and Arnold’s love affair,
1 41; 188; with Arnold to Valley Forge,
192.

Knyphausen, Baron Wilhelm von, treason
plot, 233.

Lafayette, Marquis de, loyal to Washing-
ton, 184; frightens Arnold, 236; interest
in Mrs. Arnold, 242; 243; anec., 247;
in Virginia, 258ft.

Lamb, Col. John, desc., 69; ice redoubt, 74;
attack on Quebec, 78ff; with Arnold at
Compo, 149; wounded, 150; opposes
Clinton, 176; at West Point, 231; defends
Arnold, 247.

Larvey, Corp. James, 242.

Lathrop, Drs. Daniel and Joshua, 8.

Lauderdale, Lord, duel, 277ff.

Laurens, Col. John, quoted, 227.

Learned, Gen. Ebenezer, at first battle of
Saratoga, 171; second battle of Saratoga,
177.

Ledyard, Col. William, killed, 263.

Lee, galley, with Arnold’s fleet, 116.

Lee, Gen. Charles, desc., 44; suggested for
Canada, 87; quoted, 87; avoids Canadian
command, 93; opinion of Gates, 164; of
Reed, 219; kidnapped, 253.

Lee, Maj. Henry, plot to capture Arnold,
253ff.

Levy, Miss, suspicious character, 209.

Lewis, Gen. Morgan, Gates’ Chief of Staff,
167; disgusted with Arnold, 171.

Lexington, skirmish, 23.

Liberty, schooner, captured, 33; with Ar-
nold’s fleet, 1 13; 1 1 6.

INDEX

Lincoln, Gen. Benjamin, ordered north,
155; raids Ticonderoga, 172; wounded,
180.

Lippard, George, 270.

Livingston, Henry Brockholst, aide to
Arnold, 166.

Livingston, Col. James, Canadian regiment,
78; bombards Vulture, 239.

Livingston, Robert R., aids Arnold, 230.

Loring, Mrs. Joshua, and Howe, 168.

Loughborough, A. Wedderburn, Lord,
quoted, 249.

Loyal Convert, gunboat, with Carleton’s
fleet, 1 17; 120.

Luzerne, Chev. de la, 230

Maria , schooner, with Carleton’s fleet, 117.

Marshall, Christopher, quoted, 213.

Massachusetts, sends Arnold against Ticon-
deroga, 27; relinquishes Ticonderoga, 37;
investigates Arnold, 39; bickers, 44.

Matlack, Timothy, suspects Arnold, 208;
attacks Arnold, 212.

Maxwell, Gen. William, opinion o£ Arnold,
127; at court martial, 221.

McLean, Col. Allen, at Quebec, 64.

McPherson, Capt. John, 216.

Mease, James, in business with Arnold, 197.

Meigs, Maj. R. J., with Arnold, 47; on
parole, 85.

Melcher, Honest Colonel, 197.

Meyrick, Dr. Samuel, 107.

Mifflin, Gen. Thomas, outranks Arnold, 142;
dislikes Arnold, 212.

Minerva, privateer, 262.

Mitchill, John, lends wagons to Arnold, 208.

Mogg Megone, legend of, 56.

Montgomery, Gen. Richard, succeeds
Schuyler, 61; captures Montreal, 68;
joins Arnold, 69; summons rejected, 72;
invests Quebec, 73; plans attack, 75;
advances on Quebec, 78; death of, 82.

Montreal, captured, 68; Arnold’s headquar-
ters, 95.

Moore, Capt William, 195; 208.

Morgan, Gen. Daniel, desc., 48; advance
guard, 54; quarrel, 55; at attack on Que-
bec, 78ff; commands Arnold’s corps, 80;
hesitates, 81; captured, 85; with Gates,
164; first battle of Saratoga, 169; with-
draws from Arnold command, 175;
second battle of Saratoga, 177.

Morison, George, quoted, 57; 60.

Morris, Robert, 216; accused of Toryism,
206.

3 01

Mount, Timothy B., spies on Arnold, 253.

Mt. Pleasant, 216.

Muhlenberg, Gen. John P. G., attacks
Arnold, 258.

Natanis, threatens Arnold, 52; joins Arnold,
62; at Quebec, 78.

New Haven, desc., 7.

New London, burned, 263.

New York, British at, 250; evacuation, 266.

North, Frederick, Lord, anec., 187.

Ogden, Matthias, with Arnold, 49; carries
summons, 66; wounded, 82.

Oriskany, battle, 159.

Oswald, Col. Eleazer, with Arnold at Ticon-
deroga, 33; represents Arnold, 41; secre-
tary to Arnold, 49; at attack on Quebec,
78; with Arnold at Compo, 149.

Paine, Thomas, accuses Deane, 21 1; sympa-
thizes with Arnold, 276.

Peale, Capt. C. W., paints Arnold, 196;
designs a float, 246.

Peters, Dr. Samuel, quoted, 7; defies mobs,

igS.

Philadelphia, arrival of Arnold, 152; Arnold
made Governor, 195; manners in, 200;
the great carting, 246.

Philadelphia, gondola, sinks, 123.

Phillips, Gen. William, commands artillery,
158; joins Arnold, 259; death, 260.

Pickering, Timothy, 232.

Poor, Gen. Enoch, befriends Arnold, 174;
second battle of Saratoga, 177.

Portsmouth, Arnold at, 258.

Prescott, General Robert, kidnapped, 253;
at Martinique, 285.

Price, Dr. Richard, Arnold reads, 114.

Punch, 217; runs away, 229.

Putnam, Gen. Israel, kills a bear, 19; desc.,
44; duel, 132; commands Hudson forts,
176; a bargain, 228; mediates, 247.

Quebec, plan to capture, 44; 49fT; desc., 63;
defense, 64; invested, 66; forces in, 71;
invested by Montgomery, 73; plan to
attack, 75; attack 76#; defiant mood, 89;
end of siege, 97.

Rasle, Fr. Sebastien, death, 56.

Reed, Joseph, distrusts Arnold, 206; attempt
to bribe, 207; turns detective, 208; de-
lays court martial, 219; defamed by
Arnold, 224.

302

INDEX

Reeves, Lt. Enos, quoted, 232.

Remson, John, quarrel with Arnold, n.

Revenge, schooner, with Arnold’s fleet, 113;
125.

Revere, Paul, 141.

Richmond, captured, 258.

Richmond, Charles Lennox, Duke of, 277.

Ridgefield, battle, 1476:.

Riedesel, Baron von, reconnoiters, 128;
with Burgoyne, 158; attacks Arnold, 169;
for retreat, 176.

Riflemen, desc., 47.

Robertson, Gen. James, 235; desc., 251; wel-
comes Arnold, 252; civil government,
256; a dotard, 264.

Robinson, Col. Beverly, in treason plot, 231;
note to Arnold, 236; on Vulture, 238.

Rodney, Sir George B., treason plot, 233;
a nuisance, 256.

Royal Savage, schooner, Wyncoop on board,
1 13; Arnold’s flagship, 114; armament,
1 1 6; destroyed, 121; 123.

Sage, John, birth, 1786, 271.

St. Clair, Gen. Arthur, outranks Arnold,
142.

St. Johns, Arnold captures, 34; Ethan Allen
at, 35-

St. Leger, Col. Barry, besieges Ft. Schuyler,
159; retreat, 162.

Saratoga, first battle, 169#; second batde,

I76ff.

Scammel, Col. Alexander, first battle of
Saratoga, 169.

Schuyler, Gen, Philip, commands invasion
of Canada, 42f; succeeded by Montgom-
ery, 61; orders retreat, 107; Gates plots
against, 109; rivalry of Gates, 109; 153;
controls situation, no; on Arnold’s tem-
per, 136; organizes against Burgoyne,
155; relief to Ft. Schuyler, 160; super-
seded by Gates, 163; aids Arnold, 230.

Scott, Maj., witness for Arnold, 102.

Seagrove, James, business with Arnold, 195.

Second Company of Governor’s Foot Guards,
see Governor’s Guards.

Senter, Dr. Isaac, desc., 53; quoted, 60; 73;
dresses Arnold’s wound, 82.

Sheffield, J. B. Holroyd, Lord, 271.

Shewell, Robert, business with Arnold, 195.

Shippen, Edward, a cautious father, 206;
Mrs. Arnold visits, 275.

Shippen, Margaret, see Arnold, Margaret
Shippen.

Shurtliff, William, business with Arnold,
195.

Silliman, Gen. Gold Selleck, musters mili-
tia, 145; at Compo, 149; kidnapped,
253.

Simcoe, Gen. John Graves, his regiment,
252; watches Arnold, 257; at Martinique,
282.

Skene, Andrew Philip, captured, 33.

Skinner, Gen. Courtlandt, 252.

Smith, Joshua Hett, at West Point, 234;
brings Andre to shore, 237#; escorts
Andre, 240.

Smith, Capt. Matthew, desc., 49; quarrel
with Morgan, 55.

Smith, William, 260; 263.

Spencer, George John, Earl of, 288.

Spencer, Gen. Joseph, ordered to Rhode
Island, 137; a granny, 139.

Spring, Rev. Samuel, chaplain with Arnold,
49; at Quebec, 80.

Stark, Gen. John, insubordination, 173.

Stephens, Gen. Adam, outranks Arnold,
142.

Steuben, Baron von, 194; fears, 22 7.

Stirling, Lord, outranks Arnold, 142; anec.,
194.

Stocking, Abner, quoted, 64.

Stoner, Nicholas, anec., 261.

Sullivan, Gen. John, succeeds to Canadian
command, 104; retreats, 105; 107; pen-
sioned, 230.

Sutherland, Lt. Andrew, 238.

Swashan, Chief, received by Washington,
50.

Thomas, Gen. John, 44; succeeds to Cana-
dian command, 97; death, 104.

Three Rivers, fight at, 104.

Thunderer, radeau, with Carleton’s fleet,
117; 120;

Ticonderoga, Arnold first at, 14; Arnold
plans to capture, 25; captured, 29; effect
of capture, 37; retreat of invaders to,
107; defense organized, hi; Burgoyne
captures, 154; raided, 172.

Tilghman, Eliz., quoted, 204; 215.

Trumbull, Gov. Jonathan, and Ticon-
dcroga, 38.

Trumbull, galley, with Arnold’s fleet, 116;
123.

Tryon, Gen. William, invades Connecticut,
i44ff; captures Danbury, 145; at Compo,
149; returns, 150.

INDEX 303

Valcour, battle, 119#.

Valley Forge, camp at, 193.

Varick, Col. Richard, aide to Arnold, 166;
at West Point, 231; 240.

Vulture , sloop, in treason plot, 236; bom-
barded, 239; Arnold boards, 241.

Warren, Gen. Joseph, diplomacy, 37; en-
courages Arnold, 26; killed, 43.

Washington, galley, with Arnold’s fleet, 116;
captured, 125; crew praise Carleton, 129.

Washington, Gen. George, favors invasion
of Canada, 43; assigns Kennebec expedi-
tion to Arnold, 45; instructions to Arnold,
50; praises Arnold, 87; opinion of Woos-
ter , 93; opposition, io8ff; orders Arnold
to Rhode Island, 137; cautions Arnold,
140; takes Arnold’s part, 143; reprimands
Arnold, 225; on Arnold’s naval plan,
229; Canadian proclamation, 230; ap-
points Arnold to West Point, 231; passes
West Point, 236; discovers treason, 242;
plot to capture Arnold, 253:6:.

Washington, Mary, anec., 247.

Waterbury, Gen. David, second officer of
fleet, 1 16; strikes flag, 125.

Wayne, Gen. Anthony, at Three Rivers,
104; covers Arnold’s retreat, 105; refuses
to toady, m; quoted, 112; 128; com-

mands Ticonderoga, 134; at West Point,
231; opinion of Arnold, 247.

Weems, Mason Locke, quoted, 197.

West, William, in business with Arnold,
1 97 -

West Point, plot to betray, 230ft.

Wigglesworth, Col. Edward, third officer of
fleet, 1 1 6.

Wilkinson, Gen. James, aide to Arnold at
Montreal, 105.

Wilkes, John, anec., 186.

William Henry, Prince, visits New York,
264.

Wilson, James, house attacked, 220.

Woedtke, Baron de, comes to Canada, 96;
quarrels with Wooster, 98; drunk, 105;
death, hi.

Wooster, Gen. David, judgment against
Arnold, 11; early career, 19; defied by
Peters, 21; cautions Arnold, 23; to Can-
ada, 68; Arnold asks aid, 85; sends rein-
forcements, 90; Deane and Washington,
on, 93; at Quebec, 93; quarrelsome, 98;
deprived of command, 104; opposes
Tryon, 146; wounded, 147; death, 150.

Wyncoop, Capt. Jacobus, quarrel with
Arnold, mff.

York, Frederick, Duke of, 288.

1 24 066

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